gmr044@leah.Albany.Edu (Gregg Recer) (01/05/90)
Just another opinion on birding periodicals: I've been a real fan of
_Birder's World_ for over a year now. Their photography is great and
I particularly like their regular "birding hot-spots" pieces (my wife,
however, just looks at me and frowns because she knows that's another
place we'll _have_ to go see at our earliest opportunity 8*] ).
Another good mag. that we've just started to receive is _The Living
Bird Quarterly_ which is published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Subscription to this magazine is included when one becomes a member of
the Lab. We've only received one issue but I'm suitably impressed by
it. It has many of the same attributes as _Birder's World_; primarily,
well written articles and lots of good pictures reproduced on
high-quality stock. From this first issue, the focus of the articles
seems to lean a bit more towards bird ecology and conservation and
less towards strictly finding birds and ID'ing them. It's a nice
complement to _Birder's World_.
Gregg
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"In future you should delete the words crunchy frog and
replace them with the legend crunchy raw unboned real
dead frog!!"
-- Inspector Bradshaw, The Hygiene Division
*******************************************************************************misan@ra.abo.fi (Annika Forsten DC) (01/09/90)
In article <2359@leah.Albany.Edu> gmr044@leah.Albany.Edu (Gregg Recer) writes: > Just another opinion on birding periodicals: I've been a real fan of > _Birder's World_ for over a year now. Their photography is great and > I particularly like their regular "birding hot-spots" pieces (my wife, > however, just looks at me and frowns because she knows that's another > place we'll _have_ to go see at our earliest opportunity 8*] ). I like Birder's World too, very much. If I remember correctly someone recently complained that it would be better if they also gave the latin names, but the editor did not think it a good idea. What do you think? Don't you like latin names? Don't you know them? As a foreigner the latin names would make it easier, even though I'm beginning to know the North American birds by their English names. I know latin names are not used so much in England either, but here in Finland everyone uses latin names in their notes. They are easy to shorten, three letter + three letters (Gav imm for Common Loon), the notes are nice looking when all the names are the same length, and of course, one learns them fast that way which makes it easier to read foreign literature and talk to foreigners about birds. How much do you use latin names? Do you have any more information on good periodicals, like Western Birds or other more local journals? I've been planning to subscribe to Western Birds, but paying is a problem. Does anyone know if they accept Visa? Here in Finland the banks are raising their charges, so that it's very expensive to buy checks and money orders. I don't like paying the bank half of what the subscription is. I'm rather serious about birding, so I'd like journals with good identification articles. It's funny, I've read several letters in various journals where people have stated that this or that article is too 'deep', the serie on Empidonax flycatchers in Birding for instace. Here in Finland, the deeper the identification stuff gets, the better. On the other hand, birders here are not so intrested in ecology and the lives of birds as in identification, which of course is a pity as that aspect is important too. One of the reasons for this difference could be that birders here are in general males between 12 and 50, some are older, but females are very rare, although they are getting more common. Of the 300 birders I know, about 5 are females. Between males collecting and knowing is important, so twitching is common. Sunday birdwatchers (as opposed to birders) are rare, almost unknown. If you have birds as a hobby, you spend most of your free time in the field, reading about birds or watching slides and talking about identification. It is a pity, the hobby would benefit from 'normal' people being intrested in birds too. We don't have a journal of the general kind either, if such a magazine existed, it would probably promote birdwatching among women and older couples. Unfortunately there would probably not be enough subscribers to make such a magazine possible. There are currently about 8000 registered birders and birdwatchers in the country (of 5 million inhabitants). We have just started a new bird shop, which will hopefully promote bird-watching among the public. I would be very happy to meet more women and less serious birdwatchers in the field. I'm sure this would also help conservation issues. Any thoughts on the subject? Annika Forsten, Abo Akademi, Finland misan@ra.abo.fi
sandee@loligo (Daan Sandee) (01/10/90)
Thanks for your posting, Annika. Lots of good stuff there. About Latin names : you must realize that (a) Birder's World is aimed at the large group of Sunday birdwatchers, rather than the hardcore birders, (they read American Birds and Birding) let alone the professionals (they have The Auk and numerous other scientific journals) ; and (b) that North American birding, the English names are used as a standard - the Latin names are only used by the professionals. (The articles in AB, but not the summary of observations, give Latin names. Given the audience, I approve of that, but do not consider it essential). That being so, there is no need for amateur birders to know the Latin names at all - the English names are established just as authoritatively by the AOU. As a displaced European, I had to get used to the idea, but I can assure you, it works (and is easier for most amateurs). I just get annoyed by the way the AOU misuses the hyphen in a manner contrary to proper English usage ; "Common Black-Hawk" is NOT correct English. It is easy to treat North America as a closed region, ornithologically, and virtually everybody speaks English (I pity the Quebecois who are forced to use a foreign language to get around in birding). In Europe, no country or linguistic region can be regarded as a separate ornitho- logical region, except possibly Britain. So it's not very useful to stick to local-language names, and many countries don't even bother to establish a standard. Arising out of that : I know that in Britain, the BOU does more or less the same job of taxonomy and nomenclature that the AOU does for North America. But does anybody know if there is a European body or organiz- ation trying to establish a standard West Palaearctic taxonomy ? (They'd have to stick to Latin, obviously ; at a rough count, there are about 20 European languages in which birds are discussed.) I am sure the BOU would be happy to see its decisions accepted by the other countries, but some contributions by other countries would be desirable. As to getting a broader public interested in birdwatching : one place to start would be in the conservationist movement. Surely in Finland there must be a body that concerns itself with issues like habitat destruction. I don't mean the people who complain about acid rain or global warming. I mean the people who want to preserve wetlands and forests, and establish nature preserves. (This is the job done by Audubon in the U.S.) Their magazine must reach a fairly wide audience, and these people should be interested in exactly WHAT birds need the wetlands they want to preserve. So if you can manage to get some bird-life articles in a magazine like that, that opens the way to birdwatching. In many countries the birdwatching interest must have come out of the conservation movement. It is only Britain and the US that are way ahead of the rest of the world because birdwatching antedates conservationism. Final question : can anybody explain why the only active European participants on this newsgroup are Finns ? I know from reading other (professional) newsgroups that there are plenty of netters in other European countries. But why is the combination of birding and computing restricted to Finland ? Daan Sandee sandee@sun6.scri.fsu.edu Control Data Corporation Supercomputer Computations Research Institute Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 (904) 644-7045
misan@ra.abo.fi (Annika Forsten DC) (01/10/90)
In article <425@fsu.scri.fsu.edu> sandee@loligo (Daan Sandee) writes: > About Latin names : you must realize that (a) Birder's World is aimed at > the large group of Sunday birdwatchers, rather than the hardcore birders, > (they read American Birds and Birding) let alone the professionals (they > have The Auk and numerous other scientific journals) ; and (b) that > North American birding, the English names are used as a standard - the > Latin names are only used by the professionals. (The articles in AB, but > not the summary of observations, give Latin names. Given the audience, I > approve of that, but do not consider it essential). That being so, there is > no need for amateur birders to know the Latin names at all - the English > names are established just as authoritatively by the AOU. True, but Birder's World also features articles about foreign countries, where birds often have several different names, and if you intend to travel to the area, knowing the latin name would be a great help. It would also teach the readers more about birdfamilies and relations. The English names are not always a very good queue to those. I don't see that there are any negative aspects to latin names being included, except that there is a small space loss, and somebody at the editorial board has to put the latin names into the articles in case the writer does not. The latin name wouldn't have to be included more than once for a species in every article. If you aren't intrested in latin names, just ignore them. If you are, it's an easy way of learning, and a help for those who want to read european magazines. I don't see it would hurt anyone to know some latin names. > As a displaced European, I had to get used to the idea, but I can assure > you, it works (and is easier for most amateurs). I just get annoyed by > the way the AOU misuses the hyphen in a manner contrary to proper English > usage ; "Common Black-Hawk" is NOT correct English. Yes, I always have problems with hyphens in English, birdnames spelt differently don't make it easier. > It is easy to treat North America as a closed region, ornithologically, > and virtually everybody speaks English (I pity the Quebecois who are > forced to use a foreign language to get around in birding). Well, there are Spanish-speaking people too, they don't neccessarily learn the English names first. > In Europe, > no country or linguistic region can be regarded as a separate ornitho- > logical region, except possibly Britain. So it's not very useful to > stick to local-language names, and many countries don't even bother to > establish a standard. Standards have been established at least in Sweden. In Finland we are fighting about it. When the new edition of The Birds of Britain and Europe (Bruun, Singer, Svensson, Delin) was published in Finnish, the translators introduced several new names for birds which normally do not occur in Finland. These have been laughed at, many think that they made the names up during a evening at the pub, but they are used, partly because they are so funny. Finnish names for Finnish birds are pretty much standard. > Arising out of that : I know that in Britain, the BOU does more or less > the same job of taxonomy and nomenclature that the AOU does for North > America. But does anybody know if there is a European body or organiz- > ation trying to establish a standard West Palaearctic taxonomy ? (They'd > have to stick to Latin, obviously ; at a rough count, there are about > 20 European languages in which birds are discussed.) I am sure the BOU > would be happy to see its decisions accepted by the other countries, > but some contributions by other countries would be desirable. I don't know if such a body exists. Maybe the International Rarities Committee, or whatever the name is, could handle it. The Latin names should be standard worldwide of course, so that's quite a project. > As to getting a broader public interested in birdwatching : one place to > start would be in the conservationist movement. Surely in Finland there > must be a body that concerns itself with issues like habitat destruction. > I don't mean the people who complain about acid rain or global warming. > I mean the people who want to preserve wetlands and forests, and establish > nature preserves. (This is the job done by Audubon in the U.S.) Their > magazine must reach a fairly wide audience, and these people should be > interested in exactly WHAT birds need the wetlands they want to preserve. > So if you can manage to get some bird-life articles in a magazine like > that, that opens the way to birdwatching. > In many countries the birdwatching interest must have come out of the > conservation movement. It is only Britain and the US that are way ahead > of the rest of the world because birdwatching antedates conservationism. There are conservation bodies, of course, but none for birds exclusively. Those that are for conservation in general, are not active enough in my opinion, and since a lot of their time and effort is spent on other creatures, not enough is spent on birds. Also in Finland, the land that is bought to establish reserves and such, is bought by the state. Nobody else could afford it. We have no society like the RSPB which has enough means of its own. In general conservation here is handled by the ministry of environment which naturally listens to advice from birding and conservation associations. There is the Association of Birding Societys which assists the ministry, but they have very little money and only 3 employees. You are a member of this society if you are a member of any birding society in Finland and the Association publishes a journal called 'Lintumies' which, however, is much too scientific for the general public. It's a bit like British Birds, but a little more scientific. Similar to Var Fagelvarld (Sweden). We also have a local branch of ICBP, but that is only two years old, and doesn't have many members yet. It also seems to be more concerned with conservation abroad than here in Finland. > Final question : can anybody explain why the only active European > participants on this newsgroup are Finns ? I know from reading other > (professional) newsgroups that there are plenty of netters in other > European countries. But why is the combination of birding and computing > restricted to Finland ? I don't think it's the combination between birding and computing. It's the same on all news.groups. There are Finns and Americans. On soc.culture. nordic there are Norwegians as well and a few Swedes. But in general Finns seem to use the net a lot, I don't know if it is because the net has been established very 'thouroughly' here in Finland (which it has, we were among the first) or because it easy for Finns to have access to the net, ie. no restrictions on use. There are two birders in Holland who have been trying to establish (since autumn -88) a Euro Bird Net where we exchange information about rarities and other birds. They had several replies from Finland at once, and we now have a local bird net here which is connected to Euro Bird Net through me. Our local net has about 15 members. Recently we found a birder in Britain who is participating, but he cannot be very active, I suppose his access is restricted. So far, despite trying, we have not been able to get contacts in any other countries in Europe. I have a sister who is studying at the university in Tallahassee, she's not into birds however. I visited Tallahassee, and the university, on a birding trip in March -89. Pity I did not know about you then. Annika Forsten, Abo Akademi, Finland misan@ra.abo.fi