The Biologist and the Birder

After spending 3 months on Tern Island working as a Field Biology Technician, I'm beginning to see differences between a biologist and a birder. I've spent 30 years as a birder and most of what I've done as a birder in those 30 years, involved observing and thinking about individual birds. The albinos in the previous post are a good example. That kind of variation is fascinating to me. Steve, the biologist that I'm working for, had a passing interest when we showed him the 2 albino chicks but he didn't even take pictures. His interest, as a field biologist, is the population. One pure white, pink eyed, Brown Noddy chick, that probably won't survive, has very little biological meaning. It is a genetic mistake that occurs rarely, but consistently, and is interesting only for it's rarity. It has very little meaning to the total population of Brown Noddys.
Caption: Sooty Terns at the top, Brown Noddys at the bottom