I'm an anthropologist. I study humans. Though I've always loved the non-human variety of animals, I decided long ago that my contribution to the world had to revolve around ameliorating the many ills of modern societies. With so much suffering everywhere, why would anyone invest their time in figuring out the phylogenetic relationship between different species of geckos or the biomass of all the beetles in the rainforest? And yet, as you can probably already tell by my use of the world "reluctant" in this blog title (note that it isn't "The Spiteful Birder" or "The Non-Birder" - though it likely would have been had I started this a few years earlier), my relationship with a birder has most certainly changed my outlook on non-human creatures and all the scientific queries that are associated with them.
On a more pragmatic note, it's pretty hard to marry a birder if you aren't willing to pick up a pair of binoculars once in awhile. Oh, what we sacrifice for love - in my case, it has been sleeping past 6AM on vacations and hiking at any kind of reasonable pace.
Therefore, this blog isn't going to be about birding (in fact, my pact to you, dear reader, is that a photo of a bird will never grace this site with its presence) but instead about all the human entanglements with birds and their watchers. For those anthropologists among you, consider this a place to ethnographically explore birders through a digital binocular - it's high time somebody put THEM in front of the lens, isn't it? For those fellow spouses of birders, consider this a self-help group of sorts. And for the rest of you, perhaps this blog will either inspire you to get out there and look at some birds or to resolutely declare yourself a non-birder for life.
Next up...the field guide to birders. Stay tuned.
