Hello all, NBB here. This week has been hecka crazy, as I’m doing a show in the Minnesota Fringe Festival (which Sharon is acting in) and Shaz is running around doing early morning bird surveys.
But I wanted to take a moment to engage in a little husbandly bragging because of this blog post from the American Birding Association blog: “25 Things that Changed Birding (Recently)” by Ted Floyd.
The piece talks a lot about how technology (digital photography) and social media (Facebook and Twitter) are changing the way birders connect and share information, but it also singles out a few people, including, as you might guess, my wife.
14. BirdChick. Think of a really famous birder. Then Google that person’s name and the word “birding.” Next, Google “BirdChick + Birding.” Note to purists, traditionalists, and any other holdouts in the Old Boys’ Club: Google doesn’t lie. BirdChick has “arrived.” Birding has changed.
I believe this is about more than Sharon being a woman (SPOILER ALERT: she is!), or the way she embraces new technology, but also about her personal style of birding. She’s a hard core birder, who can speak about things like “primary projection” and is very interested—excuse me, “unhealthily obsessed”—with things like aging and sexing a bird by its plumage while she’s banding them, but she also gets the other part of birding, which is being really, really excited about birds and passing that excitement along to others, especially kids and other who want to learn more about nature.
In my plays I make fun of geek culture a lot, because, well, that’s who I am. The bit that I return to is that Geeks Ruin Their Own Fun. They get narrow-minded about whatever their topic is, forgetting what made them love it in the first place. It becomes about posturing, and proving you know more than anyone else becomes the focus, rather than having a good time.
Sharon has never lost that sense of wonder. Being outside in nature is still her way of relaxing, and I still see her be stunned into silence as she watches a bird do some behavior that she’s seen a thousand times before. But more than that, when she sees it, she’ll grab my arm, point it out, then explain why this goofy little brown bird is so fascinating to her. And then it becomes fascinating to me.
All true and for those of us that follow the Bird Chick blog – she should have been #1!
I do think Sharon being a woman and really making an impact on the birding community by making birding interesting and accessible is a HUGE deal.
Btw, NBB, your comment about geeks ruining their own fun by getting narrow-minded and turning everything into posturing and proving they know more than anyone else? Not to (again) play the gender card, but IME, that’s very much MALE-geek behavior. While female geeks still create hierarchies within their geeky activities, they’re way more into being a community.
When I read that earlier on the ABA Blog about Sharon, I couldn’t agree more! Congrats on the recognition!
This is a lovely tribute to Sharon. This blog adds a lot of joy to my life.
I don’t get to bird very often because of my busy schedule so reading birdchick is a breath of fresh air
Awesome! I must admit that I am not a birder. I followed Sharon here years ago from Disapproving Rabbits, and I stayed to learn about birds. The Birdchick is interesting, and fun, and not at all what I expected from a birding site – and now I can identify more than just a cardinal (red is so easy!). The pics are phenomenal, and her conversational tone makes me feel like I’m not so much of an idiot for thinking that all brown birds are the same. The bee posts are just a bonus!
It’s great that you shared this info on the blog, NBB. Sharon’s recognition is so RIGHT! I’m a senior citizen but somewhat new to birding and loved discovering a young, knowledgable, irreverent woman’s blog when I stumbled onto Birdchick. Yay Sharon!
Who do we write to to correct this injustice? Since when is #1 the new #14? Hmpffffffffffffffff.