The good news is that unlike Mr. Audubon, the author who takes up this challenge will not have to “harvest” his models and pin them up and pose them in order to paint them. After all, this is the digital age, and the author would just be photographing the birders using the same cameras and blinds that they usually use. Now I think in order for this new field guide to work, the photos of the birders will have to be taken without them knowing they are being photographed. Posing will not work as we need real action shots in order to ID other birders from far off distances.

I realize that this may meet some initial resistance with some birders, so we will have to have a code of ethics to go by, much like the ABA puts out. There could be “Birder to Birder Code of Ethics” rules, such as don’t yell things out like “Look, there goes a Western Grebe!” just to get a good action shot. There would also need to be a rule against baiting, such as leaving out a hot cup of coffee and a donut just to lure in innocent birders to get that once in a lifetime photo.

In order to make our new field guide to birders a reality, it will take the cooperation of all birders from the area. This means that birders will not be able to change their “plumage” anytime they want, and by plumage I mean jackets and hats. Yes, birders will be able to wear different clothes in different seasons, much like the Goldfinch does, but they will have to keep with the basic colors that they are wearing in the field when they are photographed.

Of course, our field guide will have full pictures of distinguishing field marks, such as if “Denise” the birder wears a white shirt under her jacket, it might look like the field marks of the White-throated Sparrow. Or if “Dave” the birder wears black pants, the arrow in our new field guide would point to his legs much like the Semi-palmated Sandpiper.

Behaviors could also be listed to help ID birders in the field. For example, if a certain birder tends to forget his field guide in the car, our new guide could show him racing back to his car to get it. Or if a known birder seems to miss all the rare bird sightings, the guide could show him or her sitting on a log with tears welling up in their eyes. And of course we would need range maps in our guide. If “Al” the birder migrates to a condo in Boca Raton each winter, then the range map will indicate Al’s winter range in Florida.

Before you say “Gee Don, you have much too much time on your hands!” you need to realize what the full value of the new field guide to birders will be. For example, if a birder is playing hooky from work during spring Warbler migration and thinks it may be his boss ahead of him on the trail, he can just open up his field guide and decide if he should turn around and go home. If you open up your guide and see that the birder next to you is the guy that always lists the rare birds everyday on Jersey Birds, you can inconspicuously shadow him all day while pretending you don’t really know who he is.

And just think, if your birder field guide helps you ID me while we are out in the field, then you can tell me how much you love the idea of having a field guide to birders. Hmmm, I might have to rethink this a bit.