Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 07:56:11 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Rob (Robert) Hilton" Subject: Re: Snowy Owl Circus, No Ringmaster In-Reply-To: <20001220.133850.-359287.0.RaptorsRule@juno.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm not sure what time this phone pole incident happened. I saw the bird fly from a field toward a phone pole around sunset on Sunday. There may have been people already standing near where the bird landed, though I am not positive. At any rate, a few people (maybe about a dozen) did gather near the telephone pole after the owl landed. I calmly drove from my vantage point on Oland Road to New Design Road, parking at least a phone pole away from the owl (as best as I can remember), following the owl, not chasing it. The closest person I think was 5-10 feet from it; many were further away. After about five minutes the bird flew around the cluster of people and landed on another pole, near at least half a dozen people. After another couple of minutes the bird flew back to the field from which it had flown. While sitting on the poles, the bird acted much like it did while sitting in the field, looking around slowly, and not always at the people. I do not like people trespassing, or harassing birds, but I am not convinced that the Snowy Owl was being harassed at sunset on the phone pole. Also, I do not recall seeing people walking out to the bird in order to make it fly. Earlier in the afternoon, there were at least two dozen cars further up New Design Road. I parked all the way off the road so as to *not* obstruct traffic. Best, Rob Hilton Robert@csa.com Bethesda At 01:38 PM 12/20/00 -0500, Mike Callahan wrote in part: >Hi fellow MDOspreyers, > >A number of cars were also parked completely off the road, >partially blocking traffic. It appeared that some birders were parking >and walking in private driveways. > >Another disturbing observation was the train of cars that literally >chased the bird from place to place to view the owl closer. A number of >people even stood directly under the telephone pole below the perched >owl. Some were too close for comfort and to the point of what I would >consider harassing the bird. ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================