Ok, one more point. Craig suggests Boreal Owls are "relatively rare". Are they really? Or is it that they occupy a habitat that is difficult to access and they are secretive and they sing when their habitat is usually inaccessible to most people? Or simply put, we have no idea how "common" or not they are....???
With that said, using playback at the same location by lots of people isn't a good idea, nor is disturbing the birds on their breeding grounds (or for that matter on any grounds!).
Cheers Dave Lauten On 3/10/2015 11:41 AM, Craig Miller wrote:
I sort of started the conversation, so I suppose I ought to make a comment or two about it. I appreciate, and pretty much agree with most of what people are saying. That said, I would like to point out that my comments applied to a very narrow, and I think straightforward caveat that most commenters have made about when NOT to use playback. To wit, NOW is breeding season for Boreal Owls, Boreal Owls are relatively rare in Oregon, if a Boreal Owl location is given out to OBOL and other listserves, it is likely that more than a few people would go looking for the owl, and likely play tapes. At least one or two "bad apples" are likely to push playback past the bounds of propriety. So, this particular situation pretty much fits into Paul Sullivan's, Dave Lauten's, Joel Geier's, etc, caveats about potentially disturbing sensitive species using playback. The safest course is to keep Boreal Owl locations to yourself during their breeding season. Cheers, Craig Miller Bend, OR
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