A Few Birders

[tmanson]

Fraser Valley Birders: For those who may not subscribe to bcvibirds, Guy Monty, the moderator, posted a fascinating link the other day. The original poster gave Guy permission to post it, and with Guy's and Gord's permission, I am passing on the link here. Hopefully, I copied down the correct URL address.
When we think we're the only ones out there looking for birds, this link will provide you with the evidence that, in some parts of the world, the art/sport of birding attracts a lot of people.
The bird these British birders are looking at is a Long billed Murrelet, and some birders there have called it the bird of the millenium. I would hazard a guess that most B.C. birders haven't seen one either, but, I guess they are more likely to show up on our coast than the south coast of England. As a matter of fact, when I was in Tofino in late September, there was one reported there. Unfortunately, I didn't hear about it until I got back, so I didn't have a chance to chase it. In Devonshire, England, where the bird was seen, apparently the local pubs ran out of beer, and the restaurants were cleaned out of bacon and eggs. For those who have been to England, this shows how many people must have shown up to see this bird. Cheers. Thor
www.flickr.com/photos93372558@N00/295580923/

P.S. Since this website apparently doesn't automatically highlight a URL address, if the above doesen't work, and you want to see the post, and the picture, feel free to e-mail me, and I will forward it to you privately.

Thor Manson
Hope, B.C.

[tmanson]

Oops; I guess I was partially wrong. The site does highlight the address, at least part of it, but, unfortunately not the whole thing. You will probably have to type in the address, and see if it works from there. Cheers, Thor

[tmanson]

Okay, I will try again. I left out a /. Cheers. Thor

www.flickr.com/photos/93372558@N00/295580923/

[tmanson]

Pretty hard to e-mail me, if you don't have my address. This posting is turning into a nightmare. Cheers. Thor

[e-mail]

[Gord]

Wow, what a a whack of birders!! I dont think Ive ever seen anything quite like that. Does Canada itself have that many birders??

Thor, I dont know why this forum cuts off the last half of links on the larger URL's. I cut and pasted the URL you posted and it worked.

Once I figure out how to fix it, Ill let you all know. So far, Ive shared the nightmare.

Even though I saw this yesterday, Im still in shock.

[Dave]

Thanks for sharing, Thor! It would have been a great location to try out birding equipment. I would like to know the dollar figure for all of the equipment set up there! The good news is the bird swims in the ocean, allowing for great views. I would not want to part of that crowd if they were all trying to see a songbird in a thicket! Folks over there better hope that all ultra rare birds that show up do so in a large open area!

Thanks for sharing,

Dave

[Gord]

db said:

Thanks for sharing, Thor! It would have been a great location to try out birding equipment. I would like to know the dollar figure for all of the equipment set up there!

I got a good laugh at that. But how true. What a great way to field test different scopes!!

As to the cost, if the average scope runs you $500 (this is probably WAY low as I saw a lot of expensive scopes in the up close birders) and there had to be 450 birders, that's $225,000 in gear NOT counting tripods (which can cost as much as a scope) and binoculars. Since my estimate of cost and birder numbers is low and not including other gear, there has to be a million dollars standing there staring hopefully out to sea.

[Gord]

Ok, here's how to post big URLs.

Type:

[ url=copy the url here ] type the text you want to be posted here [ /url ]

If you do the above, but remove the spaces between the [ and ], it should look like this. Ill post a more indepth 'how to' later.

type the text you want to be posted here