Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Bee-eaters?

Does anybody know anything about the entry today on Bird Guides website reporting four European Bee-eaters in Todmorden last Monday evening?

15 comments:

heavy birder said...

Yes four birds were located at 18.30PM in the Todmorden area but news of this find was not releasled by the observers until late the following day and they refused to give the exact location for reasons they claimed were to protect the birds fron twitchers. I see a previous post as been removed perhaps this one will be also.

AndyC said...

Sorry I deleted post as I.. posted a comment that was a bit....shall we say.... a bit unfriendly..any way I have spoked vis email to the finder of the bee eaters and he did not want any twitchers seeing the birds and did not put the news out because of this..we have to respect this very odd decision.... and wait till pigs fly over Todmorden again...or is that UFO's in that(red) neck of the woods

AndyC said...

...and there are no photos....

Andrew Huyton said...

Were they in his Garden, or did he think they were going to breed? very selfish attitude, I can only assume this birder only does his patch and never goes to see other peoples birds? If this is the case I have complete respect for him, I doubt it though. Unfortunately until the mindless minority of twitchers who fail to obey onsite instructions re parking and disturbance decided to act like normal human beings, we will always have people with holding information on what would have been a fantastic site.

Phil Wood said...

Thanks for your input, chaps, it does seem a slightly odd decision but hopefully was based on the birds' welfare. Without knowing the location, I can't easily judge how much impact any twitchers would have had (on the birds or residents).
Would it really have attracted more than local interest? It's hardly a "mega" rarity, stunning though it is.

Nick Carter said...

Comment received from the finder and posted here with his permission

I knew of no way of alerting local birder-conservationists without activating the twitcher grapevine. When I explained the reasons for my decision not to contact you folk, Andrew saw my point.

But there was also a wider point that I perhaps didn't make clearly enough. Over and above wanting to avoid disturbance to a 'shy' and 'wary' species of bird whilst roosting, wanting to increase the chances of them staying around, and potential nuisance to my near neighbours in whose gardens the tree(s) happened to be, I also wanted to keep twitchers away because, in these days of climate change, I regard their activities as verging on the anti-social.

Conversations with a few friends locally confirm that I'm far from alone in this view. They have mostly said that they'd have responded in the same way that I did. The reality is, therefore, that the Bee-eaters might still be in the Valley, being watched by people who haven't told you about them because you are, sadly but inevitably, associated with twitchers.

If you don't make it clear that people can contact you without exposing themselves to an avalanche of car-borne individuals who only want to add the birds to their lists, then these kinds of situations are only likely to become more common.

I'm not sure how practicable it would be, but I'd like to see bird clubs dissociate themselves from twitchers. As well as the question of climate change ( and car fumes being implicated in the massive loss of insect life ), these people are still ( if a recent BBC4 film was representative ) mainly socially inept sexist men, abandoning spouses and children to gratify an obsession. They bring birdwatching/birding into disprepute, and treat sentient beings, birds, as commodities, to be collected. In the process they debase the language of birdwatching, so we end up with 'ticks', 'megas'. 'getting' birds, and evven 'not needing' birds already listed!

If only for conservation reasons, it's arguably now become socially responsible to withdraw co-operation from this kind of activity. So perhaps there's an opportunity for Halifax birders to take a lead, - and do yourselves some good in the process.

If I find some time (!!) I may write this up in an article, but will in any case be interested to see what you think. The reality is that quite a lot of us out here, feel the way I do on this.

That said, I hope you get the chance to see the Bee-eaters. They're magnificent.

With all best wishes

Brian.

( p.s by all means circulate this as apropriate ).

AndyC said...

the thing is that bee eaters anr'nt that rare and would have only been viewed by a few dedicated local birders.and in no way would the birds have been put under any pressure.I think you need to have a long look at your self and your bizare attitude.if you have seen bee eaters in spain how did you get there.??
There would have been no proper twitchers coming to Todmorden for a few bee eaters I can asure you.Cheer up and do somthing that would cheer people up and stop being so sad and miserable.

heavy birder said...

I feel I must respond, you seem to have tarred all birders with the same brush after watching one not so good programme about twitchers. I agree with Andy C only a small group of local bird watchers would have turned up and location would have been respected.I also dont think you understand the amount of bird conservation that local birders are involved with, members of the HBWC and CBCG have already set up or are involved with the Twite Recovery Project, Tree Sparrow nest box scheme, Hardcastle Crags and Luddenden Dean nest box scheme, Barn Owl nest box project, Raptor Conservation Work, Ringstone Edge habitat scheme, LEO survey, Rookery survey and Swift, Swallow and House Martin survey to name a few. Not the work of mindless sexist enviro thugs. Further more many twitchers raise a lot of money for bird projects, at most rare bird sightings there is usually a bucket full of money that people donate to a good LOCAL cause.

heavy birder said...

One last thought on this matter. Bee Eater is on the YNU rarity list, so you will need to submit a detailed description to them for acceptance.

darrell j prest said...

the account doesnt add up!!!

my guess some environmental fascist made it up for the 'cause' 4 bee-eaters in a garden and 3+_people saw them yet no photos! the last sentance of brians e-mail says it all in a mocking way

THERE WERE NO BEE-EATERS

Alf King said...

One question remains of course: just how did this get on to Birdguides if he wanted to keep "twitchers" away?

AndyC said...

as i said previously its all very odd

corsa said...

bit late this but aren't you all guilty of the same thing nothing appears on this blog until at least 24hrs after the event don't get me wrong there are no sour grapes here but pot kettle black springs to mind.

AndyC said...

Hi corsa, you can join the grapevine service,and get the info as it happens..i think your missing the point on this topic..

AndyC said...

In fact if Brian had joined we could have all see the Bee eaters,its only for local birds..or are mobile phones anti social as well.?????
In a ere when our goverment has been bombing northern africa and surrounds for nearly 10 yersa it is laughable to have a go at a few blokes who want to twitch a few birds .????Carbon foot print get REAL