Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 18:59:56 -0500 Reply-To: l-appelbaum@mindspring.com Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Laura M. Appelbaum" Subject: What "counts" on your life list? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here's a question I've been wondering about for the last decade or so, ever since I started birding, but which I've never dared to ask about before. To understand WHY I ask this question, you probably need to know that in the course of those ten years, which includes time in New York, North Carolina, Maryland, and trips to British Columbia and Alberta, southern California, and Israel, I've only be able to see and indentify, well, let's just say something far less than 300 species. Those of you who have annual lists of that many birds for Montgomery County alone, probably don't lay awake at night thinking about the answer to this question, but I'm SURE you'll have an opinion anyway .... What "counts" on your life list? Obviously, a bird you see in the field for the first time counts. And obviously a bird you've seen on television doesn't count on a life list. But what about a species that you haven't seen "in the wild" but have seen "in real life" at a raptor rehabilitation center say, or someplace like Horsehead Island? How about the Guam rail, now extinct in the wild due to the accidental introduction of brown tree snakes to the island, but which I saw poking around in an enclosure at the San Diego Zoo? Would it count if there *were* Guam rails still in the wild? Is there some generalized "code of ethics" about keeping a life list that I've somehow missed reading about in my field guides or does everyone make up their own rules as they go along? Laura Appelbaum Cloverly, Maryland ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================