Another story: My personality includes a too-large dose of competitiveness, which partially explains my attraction to listing. But also, since even before grade school, my teachers had conveyed a love of nature and its understanding in intentionally Aristotelian ways. So since youth I’ve been a collector -- think: beetles, butterflies, killing jars, cigar boxes.
With a measure of maturity came a realization that the collector perturbs the ecology of that which is collected. So consumptive study was replaced with photographs, notes, and lists. However, a focus on birding put me over the edge, elevating listing to a compulsion. With another measure of maturity (enter “life balance”) came a discipline similar to that of folks who’ve already weighed in. My chasing has been selective for some time now, the environmental cost of birding by car is being tracked (miles driven/species observed/year … try to minimize it), and birding-related volunteer activities have become more other-directed. But my listing persists without apology! Each December 31, while updating for MOU, year-on-year rising numbers produce great satisfaction. Merely an artifact of dubious progress, perhaps, but indicative of my increasing understanding about this most attractive class of living creatures, and the global context in which birds live and die. For years, the 300 list was my goal as a casual birder, and I’m proud to have finally achieved the game’s premier milestone. Not everything that can be counted counts (Einstein), and other more collective MOU data provide far more scientific value. But listing first engaged me. Nowadays the “mystery” of birds is in a better balance with my numerical objectives. Birds’ value simply exceeds their numbers in this world and as seen by my eyes. My expectations now focus on both my nemesis bird (LEOW) and being out there to just make some delightful observation. However, the experience of lsiting species in MN has provided suitable positioning for fuller appreciation of whatever the next wonder might be. Frank Berdan ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
