Listmania

Hi. I’m Clyde and I’m a bird lister. In England we’re called Twitchers.
I’ve tried to break the addiction several times, but things like that Brown Thrasher this morning keep popping up and, well, off I go. Or even worse, like last week while vacationing in Arizona/Utah I saw two life birds. Lifers! How could I not add them to my list?
I almost broke the habit in 2007. Well-meaning friends, essentially non-listers I might note, chide me about how keeping a list of the birds I see interrupts the flow of the experience. It’s seeing, watching, learning, and getting to know the birds better that is what birding should be about.
Hmmm. I’m not looking for a date with any of these chickadees; just another notch on my binocular strap will do.
But in 2007 I upgraded my computer and the program I’ve been using for years was no longer usable. Uggg. Great time to kick the habit friends said. Let it go. Cold turkey is also something to put on your life list.
Okay, said I, I’ll give it a shot. It wasn’t easy. Secretly I surfed the Web looking for a program that might run on my Intel Mac. I found one that sorta worked, but was dreadfully (for me) tough to use. And it required an annual subscription fee.
Based on the rather flimsy excuse that I needed another computer, I ventured over to the dark side and bought a PC-based notebook. Slick little machine—and I could get some birding software …
And since I had the software for the little notebook, why not add it to the iMac since it has that capability?
I sunk deeper and deeper to where now I’m at the point of waiting for some new software to arrive since I found the previous program cumbersome. And besides, this new program has a module that allows me to keep records on my PDA, then download them to my computer! I’ll be listing away and people will think I’m trying to look like a teenager and am just texting the person standing next to me. Cool.
I realize listing has become another life-long habit—like always for the Democrat, so I needed the perfect zinger for my friends when they see me sneaking my notepad out of my jacket for no other reason than to note that Swainson’s Thrush singing in the bush. How about, “Hey, it’s like golf. If you don’t keep score yer only practicing.”