I agree that they will have used a lot of fuel and are unlikely to add to
our scientific knowledge - but then most human activities fall in this
category. I know that 90%+ of my birding trips fall in this category (the
exceptions being things like wader counts). Certainly in the case of Sean
Dooley's record the same criticisms can be made - but many of us also got a
great deal of enjoyment following his progress and reading the book. If as a
result of their efforts they get some publicity and that makes some more
people aware of birds - then maybe the effort will be worthwhile. Hard to
tell until we see what the result.
On 02/01/2008, Keith Weekes <> wrote:
>
> Impressive isn't quite the word that I would use for it. If they succeed
> in
> their attempt they will have achieved nothing more than spent a lot of
> money
> and burnt a lot of fuel, while contributing virtually nothing to the
> scientific body of knowledge, since most birds will be from tip offs from
> someone else.
>
> On 02/01/2008, Dave Torr <> wrote:
> >
> > Certainly an impressive attempt! Most taxonomies have the number of
> > species
> > just under the 10,000 mark so as a %age it is slightly lower than your
> > estimate Laurie. Guess they will collect a lot of frequent flyer points?
> > (and probably fly on some pretty dubious airlines as well!)
> >
> > On 01/01/2008, L&L Knight <> wrote:
> > >
> > > The challenge would seem to be a case of moving on so that you see an
> > > average of 11 new birds per day. It's a similar challenge to
> > > rogaining where you are trying to choose a route that will maximise
> > > the number of points you can collect within the allocated time.
> > >
> > > It is very much a case of collecting the "low hanging fruit" so that
> > > you can whip through an area and catch the readily seeable birds.
> > > From memory, I think that there are 9000 species of birds in the
> > > world, so 4000 birds would be ~ 45% of the total . In Australia's
> > > case, 45% is about 330 species [need to exclude OS migratory birds to
> > > eliminate double-counting], which an organised twitcher could probably
> > > get in a couple of weeks. Other parts of the world may be harder
> > > work, so perhaps the twitchers could try to rack up 450 in Australia
> > > in a month to generate a bit of slack.
> > >
> > > Ultimately, it is a case of $$$ as well as stamina, birding expertise
> > > and intelligent decision-making [based on the acquisition of many
> > > "where to find the birds of _______" books].
> > >
> > > Regards, Laurie.
> > >
> > >
> > > On 01/01/2008, at 9:29 PM, Rosemary Royle wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi Birding Aussers,
> > > >
> > > > You may be interested to know that two birders from Wales - Alan
> > > > Davies and Ruth Miller - have just started an attempt to see the
> > > > most birds in a year. The current record is 3662 and their project
> > > > is called, not surprisingly, "The Biggest Twitch".
> > > >
> > > > They have a good website and their progress will be logged on a
> > > > regular basis. See
> > > > http://www.thebiggesttwitch.com/
> > > >
> > > > Happy New Year
> > > >
> > > > Rosemary Royle
> > > > Wales, UK
> > >
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> > > birding-aus.blogspot.com
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