Category talk:Ornithologists

Time to split?

This category is getting very full. Is it time for Category: British ornithologists and Category: American ornithologists, to join the existing Category: German ornithologists, and Category: British naturalists? Andy Mabbett 15:37, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

I've created the former. Andy Mabbett 19:47, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Subcategory re-arrangement

The sub categories of ornithologists is becoming problematic. It's mainly due to the lack of distinction between academic ornithologists, who practise science using birds as the subject matter and at the opposite extreme twitchers, whose interest is very mundane - adding to a bird list just as train or plane spotters add to the list of elements in their chosen set (sorry about the mathematical allusion).

The existing hierarchy at the next lower level could be left in place, with an explanatory note to those Wikipedians who follow to not add ornithologists directly to Category: Ornithologists. When one follows the sub-category Ornithologists by Nationality, it will then be necessary to devise two or perhaps three or more sub categories which will be applicable to many countries.

Alternatively the new sub-categorisation could be installed immediately below ornithologists. Division by nationality could be appended to each only if the nation in question has (an) ornithologist(s) who fit(s) one or more of the initial sub-categories.

I see the extra level, wherever it is placed, as having three categories. Academic Ornithologists, Field Ornithologists and Birders. Any twitchers who don't bird by themselves are hardly worth the effort of biographing. None have appeared thus far on WP, as far as I can see. John H, Morgan 08:30, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Where we may see issue is with (A) definition and (B) hybridization. I do agree with the general principle, and of course, we're going to have to treat this in the same way as the base category (Birders by nationality, Field ornithologists by nationality, etc). Moreover, I suggest another category: Bird collectors, regarding folks whose entire ornithological careers revolved around taking specimens for study back in Europe or North America.

As for definition = note that "field ornithology" is not appreciably separable from either "academic ornithology" or "bird collecting" until the 1930s with folks like Ludlow Griscom and perhaps Roger Tory Peterson. You also don't really see birding as a major hobby until the 20th century, particularly after the 1950s-1960s (first in the UK then in the US) with the advent of affordable optics. So I don't think "field ornithologist" or "birder" could truly apply to anyone prior to these times, to call Audubon (or Bog forbid, Lewis and Clark!) a field ornithologist for example would be anachronistic and inaccurate. Then we worry about separating field and "academic" ornithologists, which is becoming more difficult as field ornithologists are increasingly included in academic papers since many of those are formally trained, too.

As for birding as a hobby (and therefore including hobbyists in WP), they would have to be fairly exceptional to be included in WP to begin with. Phoebe Snetsinger and Peter Kaestner clearly qualify for WP articles (the former taking copious field notes on the context of subspecies identification, the latter having actually discovered at least one bird species himself), and most other birders that have been included have either also gained some sort of credibility in the ornithological realm, usually through literature (David Allen Sibley, Kenn Kaufman). But no, the average "twitcher" (I balk at using the term since I'm American) is not going to get a WP article, unless you count User pages! I still agree that people who are "layman birders" or something else first, birders second, properly shouldn't be filed as ornithologists.

Or we could categorize everyone as "birdwatchers" and watch everyone get really mad! :) (Just kidding.) Cheers! -- Miwa 22:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

As you have highlighted, the problem is a complete spectrum of bird people exists out there. Can we categorise them at all? Perhaps it is better to have just Ornithologists by nationality and try to restrict the addition of marginal names to it, especially in the case of personalities who have birding as a hobby.John H, Morgan 19:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)