Maybe we should have a Kingbird Photo Beauty Contest at the MOS convention this year. I 
went to a 4th of July celebration in Leesburg ages ago, and all the area volunteer fire 
brigades had a beauty contest for their engines, with categories like "Best Pumper over 
20' long", etc. We could have categories like "Best in the Over 400mm Class", "Best Dinky 
Point-and-Shoot", "Best Behavioral Photo", "Best View of Field Marks", and, of course, 
with a little help from Photoshop, the Evening Gown and Swimsuit competitions...

I think giving each of the gracious local homeowners one of those photo frames with 
multiple ovals, each containing a Kingbird photo from different, willing photographers, 
would be the diplomatic way of settling the debate...

Mary LaMarca
Silver Spring, MD

On Tue, 2 Jan 2007 21:03:44 -0500, Mark Hoffman <> wrote:

>I shoot with a 100-400 zoom, not one of the bazookas, so I need some bonus
>points here.  Hubick should be in a different league with that 600 mm
>monster.  Just to pick it up gives me back spasms.  (Though I am lusting
>after the 300 2.8).
>
>Photo wars ... us, competitive?  State lists totals?  Us, competitive?  Must
>be thinking of some other group of birders...  :)
>
>Mark