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Birders are about as crazy as rough fishers. We'll gather by the dozens by a tree where a pygmy owl is known to show itself for 30 seconds at dusk. Birders have made listing into an art form, compared to fishers. People have yard lists, and argue about 'in the yard' vs 'from the yard'. People have local lists; I've tried for years to get 50 birds in Golden Valley in a year, and just can't get there.
Some of the list ideas are similar to what we do. There is an annual big sit competition, where four people side in a 10 meter circle for 24 hours competing for the best count. Sounds like the two hours contest at the roundup to me.
One group, I think the MOU, publishes a stakeout adjusted year list. You can't count anything if someone else to you where told you where find it.
Denise and I were birding the the Houston Bird club a few years ago, when a lady we had never seen before rand up to us in the parking lot and demanded to know how many birds we had on our lists. We said 250, and she said "get right down to a particulars, to the the pygmy nuthatch. If you have 250, you're going to want to get to 400, and you can't do that without the Pygmy nuthatch."
I have a book with a carefully plannde itinerary to see 700 US birds in 12 months, naming the possibles and probables for each stop, and the dates to be there. Birds that can only be seen 4 places or fewer are given special attention, and twords the end of the years he might say "this is you last chance to see such and such this year".
I fiond birders a lot more helpful than fishermen. More eyes on a trip = more birds for everybody. Except for a few cases, we don't deplete the resource by seeing it.
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