This file was created by scanning the printed publication.
Errors identified by the software have been corrected;
however, some errors may remain.
Preface
A shared passion for birds connects people who are almost as
diverse as the birds they pursue. This almost inexplicable passion
recognizes no boundaries in terms of age, gender, race, religion, and
profession. On any given day, a plumber and a playwright, a
neurosurgeon and a grandmotherly housewife, a senator and an
ornithologist may prowl the same ground in pursuit of the personally
unique satisfactions derived from finding birds. Quite expectably, not
all people share identical motivations for finding birds; but perhaps
more surprisingly, the same people who will split the finest filoplume
on issues of species or subspecies identification largely ignore or
summarily dismiss questions about what distinguishes birders from
birdwatchers from ornithologists. But because very different personal
perspectives motivate people's bird interests, very real needs for open
communication and shared knowledge exist.
This document combines under one cover three different but
inextricably entwined aspects of the human interest in birds. Each is
covered as a separate part of the book.
Parts 1 and 2 detail the academic interest in birds. Because birds
cross human-made political and natural geographic boundaries, they
become particularly useful for evaluating the interactions between
people and the natural world. Basic research of the natural and life
histories of birds improves our abiiity to establish the policies that
govern our use of natural resources.
Parts 3 and 4 address recreational interests in birds, generally
known as birding. They present an annotated checklist of the species
known to have occurred on Cimarron National Grassland (NG) in
historic times and site guides for finding birds on Cimarron NC.
Part 5 presents the basic management issues involving the consequences of people's interest in birds. Recreational birders not only
spend money tha t contributes to local and regional economies, but they
also exert impacts on public facilities tha t must be maintained. Impacts
demand administrative attention and managerial resources.
By approaching the birds of the Cimarron NG from these three
angles, the authors, editors, researchers, and managers who contributed to this document's publica tion hope that academia, recrea tionists,
and managers will discover aspects to birds that they overlooked
before. By considering the needs of the other groups, each group may
realize opportunities for contributing their individual knowledge to
enrich our collective understanding of birds and to improve our
management of the resources that affect our birds and ourselves.
iv