The two types of birding.

[ArchTeryx]

I've always had two interested in birding: listing and actual amateur ornithology. Way back when, I was a volunteer for the Breeding Bird Atlas project and also did nesting surveys every summer.

Listing, of course, is just trying to see every bird you can. But it isn't the most interesting part of birding to me.

Observation is. Looking at avian behavior, looking at what birds nest in an area, how they interact with each other and myself. what drives them. The great advantage of that is that you can doing it with even the most common birds. Anyone can look out the average window and get their life-bird House Sparrow. But it takes close observation to determine a question that even the pros haven't yet answered: are House Sparrows truly monogamous?

And other common birds can exhibit the most facinating behavior. Chipping sparrows that aggressively chase off house sparrows. Goldfinches doing their brilliant aerial courtship displays. A healthy-looking Red Tailed Hawk that remained frozen on one unremarkable spot on the ground, even to me walking up to it, before finally taking off and perching nearby. Trying to tell the thin trilling of Cedar Waxwings from fledgling Chipping Sparrows. The many many Peregrine Falcon birdcams out there (few things more entertaining then the travails of baby falcons). And of course, the ever-entertaining chickadees.

The best birding, IMHO, is some of both. You miss out on so much if all you do is keep lists, but listing is great fun too, and serves its own scientific purpose (after all, what else are Christmas and Spring counts?)

[amazona]

1. I'm more into the observation side of it as well

However, as I got older, I realized that getting more serious about listing does serve a purpose. It can get a lazy person off her butt and into a new area, and seeing new areas I think increases your chances of making an interesting or entertaining observation because it gives you a new perspective. :-)

[ArchTeryx]

2. Oh, absolutely!

And sometimes you can do both. One of the highlights of my active birding was going on a 'listing trip' into the heart of a swamp full of Prothonotary Warblers -- a life bird for me. Since it was a professional ornithologist leading, we were allowed to sit and watch the colony for almost an hour. Prothonotary Warblers have it all -- they're very pretty, a rare sight, and they're very entertaining to watch as they feed their young, the fledgling stumble around, and they get hot and bothered at the other swamp birds.

And we got several other birds, including my lifer Black Rail, while we were watching the warblers. :)

-- ArchTeryx

[XemaSab]

3. Listing for me

makes me more serious about looking at every bird.

For a long time, swallows weren't something I looked at. I'd come back from a day in the field with few or no swallows. But since I started keeping lists other than the life list, I have looked at swallows more intensively and I am now pretty good at IDing the little boogers.

[ArchTeryx]

4. Well..

I admit I tend to think of listing as more 'twitching', as the British call it -- trying to get life birds, or trying to see rare or unusual birds for an area exclusively. That's certainly what gets most of the press.

But keeping sublists like that IS a form of scentific observation, especially over time for a given area. And it makes the arrival of something unusual all the more sweet. Still remember with fondness showing a probable-nesting Bell's Vireo for my area for the first time in 70 years. :)