Following Sandra Gallienne’s claim, based on a ‘reliable witness’, there is beginning something like a witch hunt, with calls for naming and shaming and so on. As someone who was there I saw no inappropriate behaviour. I have sent the following to Sandra: Hi Sandra I don’t think what you’ve written is really accurate and unfortunately it has engendered a lot of misplaced anger. I have no idea what happened at the golf course but it seems birders were on the course and told to leave. However, birders were not responsible for the Yellow Bittern leaving the Wallaroo Circuit lagoon. I was there on Wednesday viewing the bird from the bridge. It flew into very sparse low reeds no more than 8 m from the bridge. It was totally undisturbed by the humans close by and showed no concern at their presence. A number of people who went there on Thursday told me the same thing; it and the Little Bittern were clearly unconcerned by the presence of a large number of people. However, a lot of people saw the Yellow Bittern attacked and driven off by the Little Bittern. The Yellow was not seen at Wallaroo Circuit on Friday. It must have already left and I believe driven away by the Little. I was at Wallaroo lagoon on Friday morning and despite large numbers of people no one could see the Yellow. No one could possibly have approached it too closely, your ‘reliable witness’ notwithstanding. The Little was foraging close by and still showing no concern at the many people present. As I said, I know nothing about the behaviour of people at the golf course but at the lagoon I saw nothing inappropriate but now there is talk of ‘name and shame’ etc. I believe everyone got Paul’s message and they were acting correctly. Jim Sneddon ————————- Email sent using Optus Webmail _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
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One response to “Yellow Bittern hysteria”
Quite true. Here’s a quote from a US couple I interviewed for my PhD Australian rules are perhaps a bit dodgy at times (Dr. Stellar). Ms Stellar explained: When I was first learning to bird we were being very careful looking at this little wren hidden deep in a bush and this Australian guy came along … he just … flushed it out so he could get a look at it. And that was (when) America discovered Australian Rules football which is, of course, even rougher than our football. So that became Australian Rules birding which is a little rougher than what we would do. Many other respondents complained both about other birders and photographers behaving badly. Denise Lawungkurr Goodfellow PO Box 71 Darwin River, NT, Australia 0841 PhD candidate goodfellow@bigpond.com.au Founding Member: Ecotourism Australia Founding Member: Australian Federation of Graduate Women Northern Territory 043 8650 835 On 12 Jul 2014, at 2:33 pm, Arthur & Denise Carew <art.den@bigpond.com > wrote: _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org