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I can attest that birders are quite patient with those of us who are enthusiastic idiots. From my own perspective, I think it's courteous to err on the side of the more common species when you're unsure - that way you're not perceived as glory-hunting. My all-time favorite sighting happened the first day I got my telephoto lens:  A rough-legged hawk in Weld County, Colorado, down the street from where I live. Not like raptors are terribly hard to spot where I live - there are two breeding pairs of bald eagles within a 5 mile radius of my house. My favorite part of birding is just driving around nearby country roads, seeing the birds of prey hunt the grasslands.
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Aug 27, 2013 07:34
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| # ¿ May 5, 2024 13:37 |
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I'm new at this, but in my area I know where a lot of good viewing spots are - and so does everyone else. I am more likely to go birding at any time of day, but a lot of birders will visit the same spots on the way home from work. In the late afternoon and early evening on a clear day there may be over five different cars at the same spot. Eaglers, birders who sometimes only follow eagles, or in some cases just monitor the same bald eagle nests and sometimes the same loving eagle, tend to congregate in a small handful of good viewing spots. I know a guy who has been following one of my local eagles since he was a fledgling on the other side of the state, and no the guy's not an ornithologist, he's just a bird sperglord. He lives down the street from me (because the eagle moved here) and the only way I knew he was one of my neighbors is because we went home from the nest viewing spot at the same time once. When I am doing field work and happen to be birding as part of it, it's not uncommon for a fellow birder to be driving by, see that I am obviously birding, and pull over to join in because I might be looking at something cool. I also tend to see the same people at the 83 million small town plover and chicken festivals in Colorado. We exchange pictures we've taken, I usually learn a lot, and we have fun talking about our hobby. Craning your neck and peering intently through a pair of binoculars is a lot like going to a college campus and pulling out a Magic deck near the library steps. They will find you. It's possible that this is all because people in Colorado live outdoors and we use our houses only for sleeping and as a place to store skis and pot.
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Aug 28, 2013 04:23
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Even putting aside the massive ethical issues in baiting, any time an animal is doing something for the photographer it ruins the photograph for me. I like taking pictures of an animal going about its usual day. If the animal is responding to me in any way, positively or negatively, it's now a photograph of that response. The guy acclimating an owl to humans up there, is he getting anything special with such a photo that you can't get from a trained owl or the deleted scenes of Harry Potter? All he's getting is treating an animal like it's some sort of performer. If I wanted to take photos of a bird totally aware of and reacting to my presence I will go to the zoo.
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Sep 5, 2013 06:30
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