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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dbradnum" data-source="post: 1831465" data-attributes="member: 6157">I've seen the absence of fieldcraft, consideration and basic common sense from the minority of photographers in Lesvos, and also back home in the UK occasionally. I agree that it's pretty depressing stuff, especially when disturbance at the nest is concerned (e.g. Penduline Tits this spring)...but with respect, what you describe from Salthouse is a totally different scenario, and clouds the issue unhelpfully (in my opinion).As many birders will surely appreciate, Snow and Lapland Buntings are often exceptionally confiding, and will approach stationary photographers without concern. To be clear - that's them approaching the camera, not the other way round. In such a scenario, for the photographer to move would result in the birds being flushed. So they keep still, and the bunting might even end up inside the minimum focus distance!Other species are similar, too. For instance, I've had exceptionally close views (i.e. within 2 metres) of Grey Phalarope, Red-breasted Flycatcher, Yellow-browed Warbler and Desert Wheatear in the last couple of years, simply by waiting patiently for them to come past me. At certain points, you would've seen a bloke with a camera within a few feet of a bird, and might make all sorts of false hypotheses about how they got there. In reality, they've made a judgement based on experience of the species, and placed themselves appropriately to let the bird get close. Basically, my point is this: the chance to get photos (or just awesome views) of birds is conditional on the species in question, where it is, and what it's doing. If you have a reasonable degree of knowledge of the birds concerned, you can sometimes leverage it. The problem arises when photographers know virtually nothing about the birds in front of them, so they don't know what's appropriate - 2 metres or 200 metres. I think that's the problem on Lesvos... either that or sheer bloody-minded selfishness, which I reckon (hope) is less likely.</blockquote>

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