Leave the Twitchers (was Night Parrot) alone :-)

(Probably time to change the subject heading ……? as this no longer has anything to do with Night Parrots …) Tony Russell wrote : (referring to irresponsible birders / maybe twitchers) >Oh yes, and to our exclusion from Price Saltfield and the difficulty of >accessing Alice Springs, Mt Isa, Broome and most other sewage ponds Not to >mention the access restrictions placed on other Evaporation areas around the >country I think that Tony has got it wrong about Broome, and perhaps the others? … In the old days (early 1990s), there was only official access to the Broome sewage works from outside the fence. However, if people were working there, you could usually ask if you could come inside the fence, and permission was usually granted. However, there weren’t the high bunds that are now there, so with a scope it was relatively easy to scan all the ponds from outside the fence, and especially the overflow section at the back. A few locals were given keys to the gate. The change to access seemed to coincide with the concern about public liability. My understanding is that this is when keys were no longer given out. Then over the years the ponds expanded as Broome rapidly expanded, and it became more difficult to see many of the ponds. I have never heard it mentioned that birders, and especially ‘irresponsible’ birders or twitchers had anything to do with the restrictions. There is still a track around the outside fence, and by standing on top of your vehicle (e.g. the tray of a ute) you can still see the better ponds. I believe that access to the Derby sewage ponds has a similar history. There are tracks outside the fence (at least the last time I was there about 5 years or so ago), and you can still walk around the overflow area out near the mudflats. They did build a viewing platform for the main ponds, but I understand that this has now been removed, from my understanding because it was getting old and risked breaking, and because of public liability it was easier to remove it rather than repair it. There was a case at the Kununurra sewage ponds about 15 years ago. Birds Australia WA (as known at the time) with me as the author published a Birding Sites around Kununurra brochure, nominating the ponds as an excellent site to visit. Someone tied a chain to the gates and the back of their vehicle and pulled the gates down! This was blamed on ‘birders’ and because of the brochure. There was never any evidence of this, and I would be totally staggered if a birder did this. You can easily see the ponds from outside the fence. In Western Australia, it is quite difficult to access many of the lighthouses in the south west which tend to be good seawatching sites. Again, I believe this is due to public liability concerns rather than ‘irresponsible’ birders, and definitely nothing to do with twitchers. Yes. I understand that people (mainly birders?) doing the wrong thing is the reason given for being denied access to the Price Saltfield near Adelaide, and Koonchera Sand Dunes / Goyder’s Lagoon on the Birdsville Track. But not by being ‘irresponsible’ birders or twitchers, but by being bad drivers and getting bogged necessitating the locals having to rescue them, and the locals getting fed up with this. And I have heard the details of people (yes probably birders but were they twitchers?) trespassing to see the Red Goshawk at Mataranka. And the group who visited the Princess Parrots a few years ago without getting the entry permit (but I heard that this group – or one of the groups – was an overseas bird tour company and not Australian ‘twitchers’). I am a twitcher. Number 6 in Australia I think. I think of all the twitches that I have done. Black-headed Gull / Blue & White Flycatcher / Semipalmated Plover / Franklin’s Gull / Red-throated Pipit, Rosy Starling / Lesser Black-backed Gull / Chinese Pond Heron / Red-rumped Swallow / Tricolored Grebe (all Broome), Fairy Pitta (Derby), Red-legged Crake (Whim Creek), Black-tailed Gull (Geraldton), Eurasian Wigeon (Carnarvon), Northern Pintail (Mandurah), Javan Pond Heron / Tricolored Grebe (Darwin), Laughing Gull / Slaty-backed Gull (Cairns / Cooktown), American Golden Plover (Sydney), Stilt Sandpiper / Northern Shoveler (Werribee), Hudsonian Godwit (Price Saltfields), Forest Wagtail (Alice Springs), Cape Gannet (Portland), Red-billed Tropicbird (Lord Howe), Lesser Yellowlegs (Northern NSW), South Island Pied Oystercatcher (Ballina). The only bird I can remember flying specifically because of my presence was the Chinese Pond Heron and probably the South Island Pied Oystercatcher, and the Northern Pintail swam behind reeds. The crake walked 6 inches past my foot! Too close to photograph. The RR Swallow flew over my head as I stood there. The Forest Wagtail walked two metres in front of me. The AG Plover and JP Heron landed less than 10 metres in front of me. Then there are all the birds on Cocos & Christmas Islands. Yes birds flush there, but they would do anyway as people walk past the trees or drive / walk along the roads. Twitchers are a very valuable source of income for these islands. Twitching is mostly about finding a good site to view from and being patient waiting for the bird to show. On Ashmore Reef we have walked through the grass and around the pisonia trees and some birds do flush, but that is the last thing you want. You aim to get a good view of the bird. If it flushes you don’t see what it is. So like Kevin, Tony P and others I get very offended when ‘twitchers’ always seem to be lumped in with ‘irresponsible’ birders. 9/10 on the ‘Satanic’ scale!!! by one ignorant person (just behind poachers). I am sorry, but the general public are usually the worst offenders. Feeding bread to ducks, driving on beaches, letting their dogs chase the gulls and other birds (‘they are only gulls so what is the problem? …..’), destroying sand dunes with their 4WDs, disturbing nests, bush bashing, …. General birders are far worse than twitchers because they are always on the move and disturb many more birds. _________________________________________________________________ Frank O’Connor Birding WA [1]http://birdingwa.iinet.net.au Phone : (08) 9386 5694 Email : foconnor@iinet.net.au References 1. http://birdingwa.iinet.net.au/