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Re: Hummingbird in Cecil County

From:

James Tyler Bell

Reply-To:

James Tyler Bell

Date:

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 08:57:36 -0700

Unfortunately, regional rarities that aren't immediately made public tend to be handled on a case by case basis. I've dealt with two of these recently. One was the Lark Bunting in Western Carroll County and the other was the White-winged Dove in eastern Frederick County. In both cases these birds were detected by eBird and at the request of the homeowners, were not to be broadcast publicly but could be spread by word of mouth to control access. The Lark Bunting situation needed control because of a busy road with virtually no parking except two spots in the homeowner's driveway and the White-winged Dove needed some extra time to negotiate with the nearby church for parking access. It's a difficult position to be in as the person in charge of doling out information and in the case of the Green Violetear, someone is going to be offended. In this case, quite a few people because the bird didn't linger.

Phil
 Davis has been working on a How To manual for handling rarities but he's incredibly busy and it's not a priority. That being said, in my opinion, the local birding community should be made aware of a rarity ASAP. That's how we worked the WWDO in Frederick County. Unfortunately, since several of the recent rarities showed up on eBird first, that limits the number of people "in the know" to the MD eBird reviewers. The likely first course of action is suppression then contact with the homeowner. If they give the green light, it'll go out on MDOsprey. Problem solved! Usually, the homeowner doesn't want to be inundated with visitors so a slow release protocol is invoked. Sometimes you get included, sometimes you don't. That's where toes get stepped on as in the case of the Violetear.

So, what's the answer? There's no convenient way to do this unless the bird is found in a place that doesn't require limited access. If the Green Violetear had shown up at a hummingbird feeder at the visitor center at Assateague, it can immediately go public. Try and put yourself in the unenviable position of having one at your personal hummingbird feeder. Would you post it immediately to MDOsprey? I can safely say I sure wouldn't! 

And put yourself in the position of the person who has to dole out the information. It's a horrible thing to know about a bird that you know would be a lifer for pretty much everyone and obviously a state bird but if you let too many people know too quickly either it'll cause bad feelings with the neighbors or cause the homeowner to shut down visitation completely. It's a lose, lose situation and if you ever had to do it, you'd understand. So try to be sympathetic to all parties involved and pray that the next mega is in a place where it can be announced immediately like the Bell's Vireo at Turkey Point which was posted almost real-time thanks to cell phones.


Tyler Bell

California, Maryland



________________________________
From: "" <>
To: 
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 7:25 AM
Subject: Re: [MDOSPREY] Hummingbird in Cecil County

Hi,

I will second Maryanne's suggestions that MOS develop some guidelines 
to deal with these situations. They occur all the time in England and (for 
the most part) birders are able to work out some means of accessing the 
bird. Since there is a huge twitching scene there, and many homes are in 
dense neighborhoods with narrow roads, this sort of arrangement 
becomes vitally important. 

One thing is that birders there often make a donation on behalf of the 
homeowner to some local charity, church, school etc. These donations 
can reach several 1000 pounds if the bird is a major rarity and it sticks 
around. Needless to say this makes the locals a lot more hospitable to 
the birders!

However in some cases the homeowner just does not want any visitors or 
their house is located in such a place that they cannot accommodate lots 
of people. Then the rarity is (as the Brits say) "suppressed" --
 this
causes 
resentment but is sometimes necessary. However fortunately an 
arrangement for parking and access (sometimes even timed!) can be 
made.

Worth thinking about, at least.

Gail Mackiernan
Colesville, MD




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