[texbirds] Re: Reporting locations of rare sightings
- From: MBB22222@xxxxxxx
- To: texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 02:53:51 -0400 (EDT)
Although I am thinking about to applied to some of posted ideas I have no
intention at all even to try present excuses of my decision. Some would
question them (excuses) or even accuse me of lying so why bother. In
meantime I just want to shortly address this and a few similar replies as I am
entertained by many insinuations about my person that cannot be farther from
the truth (so by name calling on another forum - thanks goodness Texbirds
did not go that low, yet). Why would somebody speculate about another person
without even knowing that person and spend totally unproductive time on
making his/her own vision of fake reality is beyond my imagination. There are
so many interesting birds out there - focus on finding some instead.
â¦â¦â¦â¦Every time this subject appears I see the same potential reasons
given for suppressing news of a rarity. I won't list them again here because
they have been stated and restated so many times I'm sure we all know them
by heart. I think many of these reasons are valid if the circumstances are
as proposed with that reason.
However, I do not feel that they apply in this circumstance. â¦â¦â¦â¦.
And I feel that wild boars could grown wings and fly. I did not see one
(with wings) yet but should I keep trying to find one? From when somebodyâs
feelings can be use as an argument in any serious discussion?
â¦.. The tern was obviously photographed on a beach close to the water's
edge. â¦â¦
Yes, obviously
â¦â¦ All Texas beaches are public. All Texas beaches are subject to the
same random, uncontrollable access by us humans. â¦â¦..
Really, what about private islands etc? But reading some other posts,
subject not related, some twitchers think that they do have right to trespass,
rarer the bird - stronger the right. Note: anything I will write in this
reply might or might not be related to the ELTE location.
And yes, most beaches in Texas are subject to the same random,
uncontrollable access by us humans but, unfortunately, many do not act as
humans once
there.
â¦.. Mark seems to spend most of his time between Bryan Beach and San Luis
Pass â¦â¦.
Very wrong: this year I spent very small part of my time in the field
there and I did not know that I had a tail watching were I go. Again this does
not mean that I saw ELTE there or not.
â¦. and if any of you have visited this area, you'll know that it receives
so much recreational visitation (beach-goers, walkers, vehicles,
para-sailors, surfers, fishermen, etc) that I contest it would be almost
impossible
for birders to disturb birds (by any significant degree) more than they
already experience on a daily basis. â¦â¦
BTW if one wants to go to river month buy a shovel (big one in Wal-Mart
about $7) - great investment, I used it a few times this year. Also this
will provide help to access places were there are no people, and twitchers.
Just birds.
â¦â¦ So while there are good and valid reasons for suppressing a rarity, in
this case they simply do not apply, I feel. â¦..
Feelings again, like in the future tellerâs room. Anybody still believes
in witch craft?
â¦â¦ Does anyone have the "right" to not reveal a bird's location? - of
course they do! But this is not a matter of someone's rights. It is about
chosen behavior within a group that one has chosen to join, engages with,
seeks advice from, gets bird location details from, and - let's be honest -
enjoys the ego-stroking feedback from, regarding photos! Let me say that
all of this applies to almost all of us - especially me. When one is part of
such a group and enjoys the benefits listed above, to then choose - for no
obvious reason - to suppress the location of a VERY rare bird that many in
the group would like to see seems to me, well, rather mean. There is an
unwritten covenant that if you take from the group, you give to the group. â¦.
Texbirds for long time has many subgroups. It seems that we do not belong
to the same one. Some of these subgroups decided to leave Texbirds and
create new fora - one has to have urban dictionary to understand words used
there. BTW great places to check on true faces and personality characters of
some members there. Some loudly enounced that they are leaving Texbirds
and never going to come back here. Often it takes weeks, if not days, to see
them back on Texbirds - business is business, right? There must be no
clients in these other places.
It is nice if somebody admits to his own ego-stroking needs. Take from -
give to also sounds good but how this works in the real life?
â¦. But Mark has "chased" birds found by others: check out his excellent
photos of the Yellow-faced Grassquit at Goose Island and the Varied Buntings
from Junction, to name a couple of examples. â¦.
Sort of bad examples as well. Yellow-faced Grassquit - I spent a lot of
time there for other reasons - it happened that on that day I was there. I
would not travel even 10 miles to âchaseâ this bird. Varied Buntings from
Junction - I found these guys myself, or better said they found me. If I
did not have them in the front of my lens I would not take a trip to find one.
Now I could give a lot examples showing my approach to chase rarities.
Perhaps I write about one case as this is verifiable by a person who knows me
very little so should have no reason to twist the story. Not long ago
Sulfur Flycatcher was found at Quintana by Sandy. She came to me on the beach
and told me about it - I think she was surprised that I showed no interest to
see it. BTW I told her that if I want to study a bird I will travel to
places were I can find them in larger number in their natural habitats. I am
not interested in a few snapshots in bad light of the bird I have no
interest in. I left the island as fast as I could as I was afraid that circus
is
coming to town. On the way out I passed people (with Sandy) looking at the
bird - I did not even slow down. We wave hands to each other. For record - I
never saw that bird in my life but this no mater if I ever will or not.
Have other more interesting, to me, things to do.
When I am on flycatchers it remain me of something. Martin feels that he
can speculate about other people characters and motives. Should I speculate
what were his motives when he was sending so many times so many people on
wild goose chases after wrongly Iding some birds . Helping local economy?
Stroking his ego? Giving back to community? Perhaps none of these so why even
try to speculate and who wants to know? One always can ask directly. I am
sure he knows many birds better than average birder. But IMHO there are
limits if somebody wants to know them all. I rather prefer people who study
small groups, even individual species - unfortunately this approach became
unpopular.
â¦.. In a (probably futile) effort to reduce the hate mail, â¦.
I know of miracle way to handle this. Ignore them - works like a charm.
â¦.. I'd like to say that since some of you chose to publicly defend
suppression in general and Mark's choice in particular, it is okay for me to
publicly question some of the premises you used to do-so. â¦.
I would like here to thanks all who decided to do so. I learned a lot about
great character of these few people (that in all cases, except one, I
never met) and, not surprisingly, all of them have great knowledge about
birds.
At the end I would like to show one more speculation coming from another
poster that also is quite misleading.
Adam Wood wrote:
â¦â¦ Adding to the point that Mark spends a lot of time finding his own
interesting birds and that the rest of the birding community is free to do and
should do the same thing. I think this is asking a bit much. Mark is in an
enviable position that his photography is outstanding and it is able to
support his life style thus enabling him to be able to spend a large quantity
of hours in the field with the birds that only increases his odds of
finding a really interesting bird. I realize there are many birders out there
like him or are retired that can put in the necessary number of field hours to
find an interesting bird but then there are those of us who work 40 hours
a week day jobs and don't have the ability to easily put in the hours that
it requires to increase the odds of finding that interesting bird. We rely
on others sharing their good finds with us to be able to see a fair number
of rarities. â¦..
Although very nice post it is based on complete wrong assumptions and my
reply is not personal, I never met Adam and I do not use my âfeelingsâ to
judge a person.
Usually I work more than 40 hours a week (do not even ask me how many hours
a week at my day time job I worked lately). It is a matter of priority
how one wants to spend the rest of the 24 hour days and weekends. During the
summer sun raises early and set late ⦠Get up early and go to the field,
leave work and drive straight to the field ⦠Everybody has this choice.
Some
prefer doing other things and demand from others to give them things on
the silver plate. How about that others should find the bird and then call
the limo to take twitchers personally to the location - they all deserve
that, right? We own them that, right? X number on the list is the most
important indicator of the person status in the community. These who watch
cardinals in their own backyards are subhumanâs, right? But should serve
super
humans and feel blessed, right? In all these big lists how many birds were
found personally by a lister? Who and for what needs them (big lists). Birds we
re already found and documented. It will be more important to try find
another rare one that was not documented yet. Why to create this huge carbon
print just to say âme tooâ?
I need to go to sleep - there is another long day tomorrow â¦.
Am I mean? - as suggested by Martin. Do not get too close if you do not
want to find out if I can bite or not :)
Mark B Bartosik
Houston, Texas
http://www.pbase.com/mbb/from_the_field
In a message dated 9/18/2013 10:16:44 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
upupa@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Dear All,
Every time this subject appears I see the same potential reasons given for
suppressing news of a rarity. I won't list them again here because they
have been stated and restated so many times I'm sure we all know them by
heart. I think many of these reasons are valid if the circumstances are as
proposed with that reason.
However, I do not feel that they apply in this circumstance. The tern was
obviously photographed on a beach close to the water's edge. All Texas
beaches are public. All Texas beaches are subject to the same random,
uncontrollable access by us humans. Mark seems to spend most of his time
between
Bryan Beach and San Luis Pass, and if any of you have visited this area,
you'll know that it receives so much recreational visitation (beach-goers,
walkers, vehicles, para-sailors, surfers, fishermen, etc) that I contest it
would be almost impossible for birders to disturb birds (by any significant
degree) more than they already experience on a daily basis.
So while there are good and valid reasons for suppressing a rarity, in
this case they simply do not apply, I feel.
Does anyone have the "right" to not reveal a bird's location? - of course
they do! But this is not a matter of someone's rights. It is about chosen
behavior within a group that one has chosen to join, engages with, seeks
advice from, gets bird location details from, and - let's be honest - enjoys
the ego-stroking feedback from, regarding photos! Let me say that all of
this applies to almost all of us - especially me. When one is part of such
a group and enjoys the benefits listed above, to then choose - for no
obvious reason - to suppress the location of a VERY rare bird that many in the
group would like to see seems to me, well, rather mean. There is an
unwritten covenant that if you take from the group, you give to the group.
Some in this discussion have mentioned that Mark does not chase and spends
a great deal of time finding his own interesting birds. I certainly agree
with the last part, and commend him for the work he puts in and insight he
gains AND SHARES due to such efforts. But Mark has "chased" birds found
by others: check out his excellent photos of the Yellow-faced Grassquit at
Goose Island and the Varied Buntings from Junction, to name a couple of
examples.
Mark is under no obligation to explain himself, but I feel I must be
missing something, as there seems no good reason in the apparent circumstances
for Mark to choose not to share the location (although he as the right to
so-choose).
In a (probably futile) effort to reduce the hate mail, I'd like to say
that since some of you chose to publicly defend suppression in general and
Mark's choice in particular, it is okay for me to publicly question some of
the premises you used to do-so.
Regards,
Martin
---
Martin Reid
San Antonio
www.martinreid.com
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