JWN Andrewes
Poor Judge of Pasta.
I’ve seen in touched upon here and there, but not come across an in-depth discussion, hence this thread. (Apologies if it has been well covered somewhere and I missed it.)
The chances of me coming across a mouth-watering national rarity on one of my locked-down perambulations are vanishingly small, but these things can happen. And if you start considering regional and local rarities, frequent sorties and the spring season birders around the country are soon going to have to be asking themselves the question “is it responsible to share news of this sighting widely”.
I’d be interested to hear peoples’ views on this, whether news of twitchworthy birds should be disseminated, or whether birders who have traditionally relied on other peoples’ willingness to share news are now in a position where the most socially responsible thing to do if they find something good is to keep schtum.
My own feeling is that although most birders will be sensible enough to not go off twitching stuff at the moment, there will always be enough individuals prepared to bend the rules, with the unfortunate result of small groups gathering at reported rares. I also get the feeling that we are already seeing a lot of self-censorship going on eg on local WhatsApp groups, but hat could just as much be a function of fewer people being out looking. In all honesty, if I were to find something out and about, I would not automatically spread the news, and would almost certainly take the deeply unpalatable decision to supress.
What do other people think? Will someone, on finding the big one this spring, risk sharing the news? Or risk becoming an outcast after the event, when the crisis is over, or the bird moved on? Will we see a flourishing of omerta? Omertas? What is the plural of omerta anyway?
And no, this post isn't because I've found something good and don't know what to do about it. Chance would be a fine thing, although it would be just my luck to pick this spring to finally go out and find something worth bloody sharing!
The chances of me coming across a mouth-watering national rarity on one of my locked-down perambulations are vanishingly small, but these things can happen. And if you start considering regional and local rarities, frequent sorties and the spring season birders around the country are soon going to have to be asking themselves the question “is it responsible to share news of this sighting widely”.
I’d be interested to hear peoples’ views on this, whether news of twitchworthy birds should be disseminated, or whether birders who have traditionally relied on other peoples’ willingness to share news are now in a position where the most socially responsible thing to do if they find something good is to keep schtum.
My own feeling is that although most birders will be sensible enough to not go off twitching stuff at the moment, there will always be enough individuals prepared to bend the rules, with the unfortunate result of small groups gathering at reported rares. I also get the feeling that we are already seeing a lot of self-censorship going on eg on local WhatsApp groups, but hat could just as much be a function of fewer people being out looking. In all honesty, if I were to find something out and about, I would not automatically spread the news, and would almost certainly take the deeply unpalatable decision to supress.
What do other people think? Will someone, on finding the big one this spring, risk sharing the news? Or risk becoming an outcast after the event, when the crisis is over, or the bird moved on? Will we see a flourishing of omerta? Omertas? What is the plural of omerta anyway?
And no, this post isn't because I've found something good and don't know what to do about it. Chance would be a fine thing, although it would be just my luck to pick this spring to finally go out and find something worth bloody sharing!