I feel terrible about this. In retrospect I would not have told anyone about the Woodcock. I care way more about the bird than being the one who found it.
On Sunday, January 18, 2015 at 3:40:46 PM UTC-7, Dave Leatherman wrote: > > Birders and photographers and others with binoculars and cameras, > In case it needs to be said, and apparently it does, *IT IS NOT OK TO > WALK DOWN THE CREEK EDGE TRYING TO FIND AND FLUSH THE AMERICAN > WOODCOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! * This constitutes clueless, and/or rude, > unethical behavior and is the kind of thing that gives us birders and > photographers bad names with neighbors, enforcement rangers, and other > birders. Come on, people. A tick mark isn't worth being idiots, to use a > moderate label. > > Sometimes it takes a little skill and patience to see a bird, even one > that is pinned down to an area of 50 yards. This bird evolved its special > camouflage over eons and is remarkable in this respect. If one doesn't see > this bird or any bird, as often happens with ethical birding, you hope to > see the next one. This isn't like going to the zoo where you have a map, > the cage has a name on it, and it is fairly reasonable to expect seeing the > animal for which the cage is named. > > Outdoors people usually don't give up the location of their favorite > fishing hole, a morel patch, or an owl cavity. Screwing up viewing for > everybody who might follow you by stomping around for a woodcock is what > leads to decreased sharing on public media about other kinds of situations > like this one. It happened with the Fountain Creek bird last year. One > guy with a lot of saliva thwarted untold others from seeing that bird, some > of whom drove hundreds of miles. I knew when this bird was beautifully > discovered by Fawn Simonds that it was special enough to perhaps warrant > special protocols (limited viewing times, guided group visits, or something > along those lines), particularly since the parking lot at Bobcat was closed > due to mud. But the word was innocently put out on COBIRDS. The first > couple days went OK. Things tend to come unraveled on Day 3 of a > "Happening" and apparently that's what is going on. The unraveling can > cease with simple considerate behavior on the part of visitors from here > on. Please. > > Dave Leatherman > Fort Collins > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/4c2dc4c2-fdc7-486c-b61a-ec2b279dc3a4%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
