“Birds are my salvation. I can look to them and I can fall back to them. I care far more about birds than I do about people” (Lee Evans in Leveugle, 2010).
“The most problematic relationship for a twitcher is usually your spouse, if you have one at all” (Cocker, 2001, p. 125).
I recently stumbled across the documentary LISTERS: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching, which I could not recommend enough. The documentary briefly references Jamal Hussein Essayli’s 2013 master’s thesis titled the psychology of extreme birders: parallels to other extreme behaviors, anorexia nervosa, addiction, and autism spectrum disorder. Essayli sought to understand how extreme birding might relate to other extreme activities such as mountaineering, ultrarunning, and severe calorie restriction.
The data in this study was gathered from ~400 participants enlisted from internet birding forums. The sample being taken from volunteers on birding forums probably skews the demographics, and is likely not a representative sample of all birders (participants in a forum tend to be more involved in the activity than average). The data shown in the plot is from table 13 of the thesis, titled “Percentage of Birder Groups Endorsing the Costs of Birding”. When I saw this table it was love at first sight. The plot was made with the matplotlib Python library, and checked for color blindness accessibility with daltonlens.
You can read more details about the methodology of the study, as well as some of my favorite excerpts from the thesis here.
by unrealduck
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Data source: [the psychology of extreme birders: parallels to other extreme behaviors, anorexia nervosa, addiction, and autism spectrum disorder](https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/235f6a40-7a9c-4bd0-9134-76fddd50df6b/content)
Tools: matplotlib, and checked for color blindness accessibility with daltonlens
Why is the “risk of dying” so high up the list?
Do they climb trees or go up cliffs to see the birds?