Time to name and shame!
Waiting patiently for the Rosy Pastor (much nicer name than RCS!) to show this afternoon at a sensible distance when the three muppets in the foreground arrived and decided they needed to be five yards closer than everyone else.
A polite request to stand a bit further back was met by a mumble from one of aforementioned than 'there hadn't been a problem earlier in the week' and they all stayed put. Felt especially sorry for the responsible birders who had been waiting for a couple of hours for the bird to come down to the bird bath only to find that when it did, one of the muppets quickly tried to reposition and the bird bolted back into the tree as a result.
I'm fortunate to have many contacts around the county and can say that more and more are getting thoroughly p*ssed off with the attitude of (mainly, but not exclusively) so called 'photographers' with all the gear but no f******g idea who despite £5K of equipment aren't happy unless they can shove their lens up the birds arse. As a result more and more birds are going to be either suppressed or else just shared with people who can be relied upon to act responsibly.
Apologies for the tone of the post but after initially missing the Roller and being told by two independent birders that it had been 'flushed by a photographer' and then 'it's being chased around by a photographer' it's time to say enough is enough.
PS: This isn't aimed at responsible photographers - there are some about, one of whom was kind enough to provide the people who's garden the bird is in with a framed print.
PPS: If there is a collection on site tomorrow (RNLI?) please give generously.
Mick
This rant from Mick Saunt is the biggest load of rubbish I’ve heard in years. I was one of the 6 people standing in the group photograph. The distance that we were standing (c.10m from the privet hedge) was well outside the minimum distance the bird was happy with us standing. This was based on the fact I had been there the previous day for 4 hours and people were standing much closer to the bird and it showed no nervousness to people moving around noisily.
Mick’s accusation that people scared the bird by moving is very doubtful, people did move, I wasn’t one of them I hasten to add. The bird flew down to the bird bath and spent around 20 seconds and took around 3 gulps of water before flying back into the tree and certainly didn’t appear to have flown due to people moving slightly. This was definitely part of the pattern the bird has been showing during its stay. The bird tended to feed on the fat balls for 5-10 minutes then it normally goes for a drink, 3 to 4 gulps then back into the sycamore tree for a quiet period (c.30 mins) to digest its last meal. Therefore the above fitted with the regular pattern and the accusation that people scared the bird off of the bird bath in this instance is complete and utter fantasy.
I assume that Mick was one of the 3 folks, 2 of which had cameras that were standing further back than everyone else. As well as us there were approximately 10 additional people standing on the other side of the road at roughly an equal distance to the bird/garden to what we were. I’m happy for him to stand back that’s his choice, but from that position you wouldn’t get a decent shot because the bird looked pants on the bird bath and the bird feeders from a photographers point of view. We were stood quietly at the furthest distance that it was possible to see the bump on the bottom of the sycamore trunk were the bird occasionally alighted. This was the most desirable spot to get the bird perched for a nice photograph. A quick search of the web reveals lots of pictures of the bird on this spot. In fact the picture mentioned Mick that was given to the owners was a picture of the bird in this position and was obviously taken from roughly the point we were stood! Interestingly once Mick and the other moaner cleared off, we asked the owner if we could throw a few raisins in and around the garden and wow! He came down and then came down right in front of us only a few feet away and seemed unperturbed by a rush of birders clanking tripods.
Mick, here is a bit of advice, what you need to do is get out and start doing some bird finding and gaining general experience in birds and their habits after a while you will get the hang of it. This is far better than running around chasing other peoples birds and being so sad that you just want to moan about others that are far more competent than yourself. Unfortunately these days the twitching scene is full of low level bird spotters like you. In the old days people used to get a local patch familiarise themselves with the common species then consider travelling more widely in search of new birds, this went along with swotting up on the identification of less familiar birds such as melodious/icterine warbler or Mediterranean gull etc. Sadly these days are long gone people go straight to the twitching scene and don’t have a clue about what they are looking at. A good example of this is the recent Melodious warbler in Notts, good on the finder for noticing something different. But for crying out loud the bird was being watched virtually all day before someone with an ounce of knowledge and ability made the correct ID. That’s an example what has happened to the state of the typical twitching crowd. I’m not against beginners but for heaven’s sake I don’t like to be told where to stand by folks who don’t have a clue what they are looking at.
Another thing I can’t understand is why people seem to think it’s good to arrive at a twitch to watch the bird facing the sun in terrible heat haze when they can scarcely see anything more than a blob and think that a satisfactory ‘tick’. The whole idea of going to see a rare bird is that you are supposed to be familiarising yourself with the identification features for future reference when you might be lucky enough to come across one for yourself. I don’t know whether it’s just laziness in walking or just general lack of interest in the bird once the tick has been trainspotted. The melodious warbler incident proves this point none of the people twitching the melodious warbler had any idea what they were looking at, none of them bothered to look at the ID features before travelling to see the bird, how pathetic!
At the RCS none of us wanted to move back due to the fact that we were trying to enjoy the bird as the 3 idiots 5m behind were talking really loudly, joking and talking general drivel, they sounded like they were all bloody deaf to me. I caught some bull about the bird getting blown off course and rubbish about some birds the 3 in the group were bragging about seeing, Yawn!
This seems to be a big problem these days at twitches with people making constant loud noise that frequently prevents the bird coming out into the open. As said earlier In fact the majority of people these days at twitches are absolutely clueless as to what they are watching, but appear to be experts in the tolerance to a birds approachability. A lot of photographers at rarities these days try to sit quietly to the side and wait for the bird to come to them. This can be difficult as if you try to do this all you get is a load of numpties stood directly behind you chatting loudly arms waving about and constantly clanking tripods standing directly over where the bird wants to come out while you’re sitting quietly hoping for the bird to show. Well if you do this expect to be walked in front of, its people trying to get away from the numpties.
Also I will add I was never on Dunwich heath taking pictures of Dartford warblers except for the day I had a walk there when I rough-legged buzzard fly over, If I had seen someone on there that day I would have remembered. Other than that the only other day I’ve been up there was the day of the Daurian shrike so Pete I think you must be confusing me with someone else.
