Abstract
Over the years Watchbird, like Topsy, just growed. No one in the A.F.A. really had an accurate idea of who the magazine really reached nor what sort of material the readers wanted. The recent survey completed and returned by hundreds and hundreds of A.F.A. members has at long last given us a clue as to who you are and what you want. Some of the results are surprising.
First off, the A.F.A. membership is the creme de la creme of the bird fancy. Over 74% of the members returning the survey had some college education with 28% having a four year degree and 24% having advanced degrees.
The survey indicates Watchbird readers are intelligent, intellectually inclined, and curious people. These bright folks also tend to be rather young. Fiftyfive percent are between 20 and 40 years old. Thirty-five percent are 40 to 60. Fewer than one percent are under 20 years of age and ten percent are over 60.
Oh, best of all possible worlds!! You bright, educated young people also have money. Fully half of you who returned the survey earn $15,000 to $30,000 per year. Twenty-five percent of you earn $30,000 to $50,000 a year and a lucky fourteen percent earns more than $50,000. Only eleven percent of us are poor, earning less than $15,000 per annum. With youth, brains, and money, birds can't be far behind.
Regarding the numbers of birds A.F.A. members own, the categories are pretty even up to 200 birds. Twentyseven percent have 10 birds or fewer. Twenty-seven percent have 50 to 200 birds on hand. Only thirteen percent have 200 to 500 birds and three percent respectively have 500 to 1000, and over 1000 birds. The survey didn't request data that would indicate which income groups kept the most or fewest birds. Common sense leads me to believe the most birds are kept by the poorest people -they don't have any money because
they spend it all on birds.
Almost half (43%) of the A.F.A. members live in suburban areas. This I suppose includes most of the ''backyard breeders," the backbone of the A.F.A. Thirty percent live in an urban area. This, perhaps, includes a lot of bird rooms and basement breeding arrangements as well as a few small back yards. The rural areas accommodate twentynine percent of the members and probably the largest collections of birds. These percentages add up to 102 % which means some of you folks keep birds in more than one place-doesn't it? Actually, when I calculated the percentages I rounded off to the nearest 112 percent so the figures (like those in my checkbook register) only indicate a general trend and not a mathematically precise accounting.
Now that we have a general idea who we are, let's see what we want more of and less of in the Watchbird Several trends emerged so strongly as to be unmistakable. Seventy-four percent want more articles on avian nutrition. Seventy-one percent want to read more about successful aviaries and sixty-nine percent want more material on avian medical and health care. One person asked for information on keeping a sick or injured bird alive until it could be gotten to the veterinarian. That's a valid point considering many A.F.A. members live a long way from qualified bird vets. We'll get a good article on that subject.
The gist of the above statistics indicates that most A.F.A. members are bird breeders rather than single - bird pet owners. A healthy forty percent also want to read more about rare and endangered species, perhaps with thoughts of captive breeding lurking in the back of their minds. Thirty-six percent want to learn more about birds in their native habitats-field studies, as it were, and, again, I feel this is data that could be
fruitfully incorporated into good captive breeding programs. I know that Robert Berry, Chairman of the A.F.A. Conservation Committee is interested in field studies and is anxious to get some work under way. Perhaps we can, before long, get some field results written up in the magazine. Jack Clinton-Eitniear' s "From the Field'' column has been very well received and we'll encourage Jack to do even more field work and to report it in more detail.
When it comes to the types of birds that are most popular with A.F.A. members, psittacines are a heavy favorite (special interest of seventy-seven percent of the respondents) with finches ( 34 % ) following next. There is a strong group (30%) that specializes in budgerigars. Budgies are, of course, psittacines but many budgie breeders specialize to the exclusion of all other birds. Softbilled birds were the next most popular with 23 % of the respondents indicating an interest. Eighteen percent of the returns asked for more canary material, and game birds and waterfowl drew 13 % each. These percentiles, in my experience, probably reflect the actual percentages of bird types commonly kept in American aviculture. They are a fairly accurate reflection of the categories of material that come in to the Watchbird also.
The remaining portion of the survey permitted a good deal of subjective variety. One person objected to repetitive advertising in the magazine. Six people wanted cartoons and five said no cartoons. One reader suggested a regular section where readers could submit their bird photos (such a section could give art director Hessler gray hairs), and one strange fellow requested fewer photos in the magazine.
Many respondents voiced a desire to have more "how to" articles and short "handy hints.'' One person asked how vitamins were most commonly administered to birds and another asked how deep a lovebird seed dish must be to prevent waste. A lady asked for specific plans to build a photo-box for bird photography. Many people requested more articles on aviary construction and planting. Nearly everyone seemed to be interested in other bird breeders and what their aviaries were like. It will be easy for Watchbird to re-establish the "A.F.A. Visits" or some such similar look at various successful aviaries. And one A.F.A. member (obviously a new one) even asked that the A.F.A. do a census on birds bred in captivity.