I, too, am very impressed with a great many of the photos I've seen this year. And I've seen some bad behavior by some birders and photographers. But I don't think we should be too hasty to judge one another. I'm VERY opposed to doing anything to rouse a sleeping Boreal Owl--when they're wandering and don't have a cavity to spend the day in, they're very vulnerable, and their open eyes are a dead giveaway to chickadees and jays of their presence. But if they're actively hunting, why do we instantly assume that nearby photographers are bothering them? When a birder or photographer is very close to an owl, he or she has often spent a long time creeping in, not bothering the owl at all. Sometimes (and I've seen this happen more than once), a photographer gets set up to take distant shots and owls have actually come closer to the photographer. Someone driving by may make assumptions that aren't at all fair.
I can be a real b*tch when it comes to protecting birds because I'd far rather err on the side of a bird than a person any time. But the truth is, northern owls are pretty tolerant, and when we're not rousing them or luring them near roads or startling them so they fly across a road, I don't object to people setting up and taking pictures, even if they've spent their entire discretionary income on camera equipment. All this talk about whose lens is longer than whose seems a bit unseemly to me. Can't we just get along? Laura Erickson Duluth, MN Producer, "For the Birds" radio program <http://www.lauraerickson.com/> There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of birds. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature--the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter. --Rachel Carson
