For many birding is a listing game (myself included) and even though Cocos
and Christmas is a long way from the mainland many like to include species
from such localities on their lists as they are part of Australia and
furthermore they are fantastic places to visit. Naturally if you are a
world lister chances are you would be better off visiting another country
but others would argue that it is more exciting to find a rarity in your own
country or territory than to see birds that are just ticks overseas (many of
which will be forgotten not long after seeing them).
Some of us like to maintain world lists, country lists, state lists, family
lists, year lists etc, so it is all a matter of what you are collecting as
an individual. The positive side to Cocos and Christmas Island is that (a)
they are including within our Christidis and Boles checklist (b) It has
greatly increased our knowledge and awareness of the wildlife of these areas
(c) provided valuable tourism dollars for those that live there and (d)
further highlighted the conservation requirements and (e) it's a great
excuse to visit places one would never normally venture to - one of the
reasons in my opinion that birding is such a wonderful pastime.
Sure if a common bird which you have seen many times overseas turns up on
Cocos (Common teal for example) it would be a very costly exercise to twitch
it but if a once in a life time weather system is turning up lots of birds
then it does become viable and a great deal of fun and finding a new bird
like a European Roller for Cocos/Australia is very exciting and for me
seeing a new family in some distant overseas country is just as rewarding. I
reckon if you want a big Australian list and are prepared to include
external territories then now is the time to consider a trip to Cocos and
Christmas Islands.
That said I do agree that adding the Falklands to the British List is just
not on and including Cocos and Christmas Islands is not that different, but
again it does help to promote the conservation of wildlife at these
localities so I remain firmly in favour of including them.
To make our listing game a little more interesting I have enhanced the
totals page recently to include mainland totals - just for fun of course.
http://www.tonypalliser.com/totals.html
Regards
Tony
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