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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Greatest Life Risk? (1 Viewer)

There's still so much UXO lying around in Xieng Khuang, Laos that tourists are discouraged from wandering off into the bushes unless they've been officially cleared (not that there are many bushes left). I also managed to get shot at by bird hunters who presumably thought I was a bird because I was skulking. Probably no more than lead shot, but unnerving to have it pinging through the leaves right next to my left ear. I think they were genuinely apologetic when I leapt out into the open and tried not to look like a bird, but maybe they'd just taken my camera for a rocket launcher and decided to be polite. I saw a lot more bird hunters after that - but not many birds. However, probably my most life threatening experience was a drive back at night along a mountain track from somewhere up in the Nam Ha Protected Area. I'd been out all day and the only thing I'd managed to get close to was a dead owl, which had been shot with what looked like a crossbow bolt. Our driver had been out all day drinking lao lao in the nearest village. In the end we decided that since he was obviously used to driving with a BAC bordering on 1 %, it was probably less dangerous than the alternatives (e.g. trying to hijack the vehicle). Scary all the same.
 
Grin, Momo, that's what you get for running around with that 500mm lens. Or is it bigger? ;)

In Hungary hunters go less likely after birds, but they might accidentally shoot you anyway, because many are drunk and might take you for a deer or a sow.

So far they seem to have shot only their fellow hunters (at least one last year).
 
Isn't birdwatching in general just dangerous? I've been at gunpoint thrice (in Turkey, Cyprus and most surprisingly England), I've nearly been hurled off the back of a tractor on a Turkish mountainside, I've been in fear of my life when confronted by a TERRIFYING Greek dog (twice - I had to go back the same way) and that's without even thinking too hard. In most of the above I didn't even have a specific bird in mind!
 
Maybe not exactly life threatening but an angry maltese bird/rabbit with a shotgun yelling and swearing at you is nerving enough. In the past there have been closer confrontations...
 
Maybe not exactly life threatening but an angry maltese bird/rabbit with a shotgun yelling and swearing at you is nerving enough. In the past there have been closer confrontations...

lol, that wasn't intended. Of course it should have read an angry maltese bird/rabbit hunter!!! Malta isn't that dangerous! ;)
 
managed to get shot at by bird hunters who presumably thought I was a bird because I was skulking

No need to go to Laos. I was sh*tting in some roadside bushes in Camargue when a local hunter started shooting at them.
 
Might I suggest you are listening to the wrong news channel. ;)

This week, two French nationals seized in Mogadishu - now handed over to al-Shabab and will be subject to Sharia trial for "conspiracy against Islam". This week, in the south, gunmen crossed the border into Kenya and seized three foreign aid workers, taking them back to Somalia.

The whole of the south is basically under the control of hardline radical movements and none of it is even close to safe.

You might wish to try a pelagic seabird trip off their coastline however - these pelagics are slightly expensive though, the current rate is about US $1.8 million for a typical three-month sit out on the fair waters off Eyl. I would guess Socotra Cormorants might get a little boring after a month or two.


Personally I reckon if Jos thinks its dangerous I would only go there in a Challenger 2 loaded for bear, and I'm not sure I'd see a lot of birds that way!

John
 
Are not most border areas somewhat more dangerous? Last times I have been in Texas and Arizona near the Mexican border it kinda seemed like there may have been more guns.

Have always worried about traffic accidents the most. I might be a wimp and just not use to it.

Mike
 
And no doubt, like many of us, you actually paid good money to enjoy(?) that particular experience... ;)

Richard

Heheh. Yep. And we hardly saw anything that couldn't be had easily without endangering life and limb. No Snowcocks (we heard plenty! An oddly mocking call), no Accentors, no Lammergeiers and no Wallcreepers. I'm a crap birder, though.
 
Personally I reckon if Jos thinks its dangerous I would only go there in a Challenger 2 loaded for bear, and I'm not sure I'd see a lot of birds that way!

John

Just how 'hard core' is Jos then....does he act like a 'terminator' with binoculars?....;)

ps...'i'll be back'....!
 
Give White-cheeked Partridge near Kaziranga a miss, whatever your tour leaders say – a Dutch birder was trampled to death by an elephant there this year.
Other birds in South East Asia can come with the same problem.
I would definitely not venture into the Sierra de Perijá on the border of Venezuela and Colombia.
For some people, great heights are a lethal risk, so stay away from some Andean and Himalayan species...
 
Just how 'hard core' is Jos then....does he act like a 'terminator' with binoculars?....;)
Dug this up from an old thread to confirm:
I guess to date most of my birding acts have only been irresponsible to my own safety, birding the hinterlands of Afghanstan, picking my way through a mined area in Eritrea and the like, occasional encounters with beasties where perhaps it wasn't so wise to walk, but the reality I have never considered any of them outwardly risky. I guess potentially a tad insensitive, if not irresponsible, was picking my way across the devastation of the tsunami, then (though admittedly numbed by the dead around me) scanning for terns on the beach ...she who I was travelling with would not speak to me after that!
 
Dug this up from an old thread to confirm:

All i can say is...[without swearing]...is 'blimey'!


ps...i wonder wot bird Jos was after on other side of potentially exploding field?

pps....i regularly walk thru fields with some really nasty stinging nettles in it...;)
 
I got stung by a bee in Khao Yai, does this count?

Depends on the type of bee:eek!:

When I was birding in Zimbabwe, I had to decide whether or not to go for Pel's Fishing Owl on an island in the Zambezi River. The trip to the island was easy, only problem was the long reeds that hide hippos! Went for it anyway, got the owl, and missed the hippos! Not quite in the league of Jos, but good to get the adrenaline going anyway, never knowing what is going to burst out of the reeds!

Andrew
 
Depends on the type of bee:eek!:

When I was birding in Zimbabwe, I had to decide whether or not to go for Pel's Fishing Owl on an island in the Zambezi River. The trip to the island was easy, only problem was the long reeds that hide hippos! Went for it anyway, got the owl, and missed the hippos! Not quite in the league of Jos, but good to get the adrenaline going anyway, never knowing what is going to burst out of the reeds!

Andrew

Nasty critters hippo's...calculated risk eh?! [glad it was worth it]!

Regards bee's.......i know a guy [who shall remain nameless] who runs away like an ultra 'camp' Graham Norton whenever bee's show up...tis very funny to watch...no video footage unfortunately! In Vietnam..[Cat Tein]...thuz some marauding sweat bee's that seem to appear...[about 20 mins before a certain frogmouth supposedly appears]...kinda freaks you out when they land all over you..not life threatening tho!

ps...perhaps ought to start new thread...'dumbest thing you've ever done in order to see a bird'....;) Not that i'm saying anyone's 'dumb'...just we all do things...that with hindsight...are very foolish..[but make great 'tales' later on]! Best birders in the world are mostly 'barking' mad...one way or another;)
 
Speaking from personal experience rather than generically (Somali endemics probably the worst globally) - I tried a brief trip to eastern Congo a couple of years back to try and score Congo Peafowl, Congo Bay Owl, Yellow-legged Weaver etc, but had to beat a hasty retreat back to Uganda when the sounds of machine gun fire got a bit close.

More recently, but perhaps less life threateningly (to my generation at least) - Dartford Warbler caused me all sorts of problems. I got brief views of an imm on The Lizard and wanted to rule out Marmora's Warbler. I climbed over a normal looking fence to secure better views, only to receive a rather nasty shock to my more intimate parts. Which just goes to show, any bird can be dangerous if you're stupid enough!
 
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