Guy and Tweeters,
As a group, I believe it's incumbant upon ourselves to make sure incidents like this don't occur. If outside prejudices unfortunately exist, that belongs to the individual, and have no place in what we all have the right to share(viewing birds). An apology seems very much in order.

Barry Levine
Seattle

-----Original Message-----
From: Guy Monty [mailto:glmonty at poecile.com]
Sent: Fri 1/14/2005 10:22 AM
To: , tweeters
Cc:
Subject: [Tweeters] Thanks For The Kind Words:


Greetings Tweeters,

I'd like to thank all of you that privately e-mailed me to explain the situation with this individual. Although it's unfortunate that the situation arose at all, I suppose we feel a bit better that we were not being targeted because of our country of origin, and that many of you have had to endure the same type of stupidity from this individual in the past. Actually, that doesn't make us feel any better, but at least we understand now.

Some of you have mentioned "ethics" and the ABA code of ethics. Just so we are all clear here;

We were parked on Thomas St at daylight and no birds, or birders were present. For about ten minutes we were quietly, and repectfully walking the street, when the Redwing, and Ms Screamer arrived within one minute of each other. The Redwing landed in a shrub in a yard exactly where we were parked. We did not approach the bird any closer, and were being quiet and still. All three of us are biologists/birders, with years of experience on field projects, and have attended numerous rare bird stake-outs. I have spent the last several years working on ways to curb disturbances caused by human recreation in the Parksville-Qualicum Wildlife Management Area here on Vancouver Island. We are all well aware of the pressures that can result when a bird this significant is known to the public. None of us would ever tolerate any undue disturbance to a bird at a stake-out like this.

After less than a minute from when the bird arrived, the freight train of hatred bore down on us, and although none of us raised our voices, and we moved away from the birds location to get in our vehicle to leave, the screaming, yelling, and running back and forth across the street continued to a point where the construction workers across the street stopped what they were doing to see what was going on. Disturbance?

I have received private e-mails informing me that another pair of birders from BC had a similar experience with this individual last week, and several Washington birders have had to endure the same treatment since this bird arrived.

We often treat questions of ethics as private matters, as rules for the individual to obey. But there is also an ethical responibility that arises when one becomes part of a group or organization. Clearly, this person does not have the ability to make reasoned responses to what she perceives as problems, and does not understand what ethical birding entails. Perhaps it's time for this persons peers to intervene.

And by the way; thank you all for sharing what was an absolutely blissfull minute and ten seconds of viewing a very remarkable bird.

thanks again,

Guy L. Monty
Parksville, BC