[Birdtalk] In Support of Keeping Lists

[Kristin Purdy]

In regard to David Wheeler's ruminations concerning the taxonomy of Glossy vs. White-faced Ibis, I'm one of those people who keeps lists irrespective of official sanction. In looking for a Glossy Ibis entry, I had to work through a couple of my lists to find the entry that offered me comfort:

Here goes:

List of Pink Birds I Have Seen:
1. Pink Floyd
2. Lewis's Woodpecker
3. Roseate Spoonbill
4. Trumpeter Swan with one spray-painted wing

List of Taxonomic Names That Tickle My Fancy
1. Melanitta perspicillata    (Surf Scoter)    The name just rolls off your tongue
2. Dendragapus obscurus    (Blue Grouse)    Sounds like a little-known medieval warlord
3. Lanius excubitor     (Northern Shrike)    A knight of King Arthur's Round Table?

List of Memorable Birds I Saw While Trotting the Globe:
1. The striking Hoopoe that swooped in, landed on the ground, and then utterly blended in at Camp Doha, Kuwait
2. The pair of Great Tits that came to my feeder outside my office window at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany
3. The Pacific-golden Plover that foraged in my front yard in Honolulu, Hawaii

List of Significant Bird Memories From My Childhood
1. A fiery male Blackburnian Warbler in the dark green spruce tree outside my bedroom window
2. The American Woodcock that sat under the feeder on a snowy Easter morning
3. Red-phased Eastern Screech-owl always in the woodpecker hole on the way to filling our water bottles at a spring
4. Great Black-backed Gull that pooped on my sister's head on an island off the coast of Salem, Massachusetts

List of Birds My Mother Says I Saw as a Child and I Don't Remember (DR) or I Barely Remember (BR):
1. Snowy Owl atop the First Agricultural Bank building for the winter living on the ample supply of pigeons (DR)
2. Northern Hawk-owl that stayed for the winter three towns over when I was 5 (DR)
3. A wandering flock of Glossy Ibis that caused great excitement among the birders in my county (BR)

There! There it is! I barely remember accompanying my mother to chase a small flock of Glossy Ibis that showed up in my county in New England. So the Glossy Ibis does indeed appear on one of my lists. Now I can sleep nights and don't have worry about running to Cache Valley to sift through endless flocks of ibis for the Glossy. Phew!  

Kris
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