Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 09:06:59 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Leslie Roslund Subject: Re: Snowy Owl Situation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Norm (and others) Though it is terribly embarrassing to learn of birders breaking fences and tromping through yards and across fields of private property, I do not favor attempting to cut off the information about sightings of special birds. The service provided via MDOSPREY could probably be rated as doing 99.5% good for birds and birders, with perhaps .5% or less being its contribution to things like the Snowy Owl flap and last summer's similar flap with the Hooper's Island Sandhill Crane. Great numbers of people have had their appreciation of birds greatly enhanced by MDOSPREY info. The main hope for avoiding other flaps in the future is education, and MDOSPREY can play an important role here, and already is doing so. Birders just need to be told again and again to always respect property rights, especially in rural areas, where it may be tempting to think that no one is watching. One is far better off to always assume that you are being watched in whatever you are doing, and often the watcher is basically hostile to your presence. In the present situation, the land owner seems to have made it very clear regarding what he considers to be his legal turf, and we must comply. Fortunately, there is the other side of the road that can be used for parking and viewing. If weekend visitation is particularly heavy, this might very well be a time for the local bird club to arrange to have chaperones posted at the site during the busiest hours, charged with the responsibility for ensuring courteous behaviour by the viewers. Self-regulating makes far more sense than leaving it to the land owner to call the police whenever the birding crowd grows to more than one or two cars of visitors. Last Sunday afternoon, when I visited, there were about five cars of visitors, all parking on the south side of the road, and using that ditch for scopes, etc. No one was even so much as leaning on the fence. All were greatly enjoying the bird. Several families were there with small children. More experienced birders with great scopes were setting the scopes low so the children (even of strangers) could share the viewing. All of this was a wonderful scene of people enjoying the wonderful bird. The land owner may have missed seeing such joy being found on his property for this bird. That in itself is a bit sad. Les Roslund Lroslund@bluecrab.org Talbot County Easton, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================