Matt,

I too have been privy to the results of this as of yet unpublished study - it's in the final stages of peer review.

Personally long drawn to the "observing but not intruding" style, you'll never catch me again referring to the ?big honkin? lens" crowd as "nature paparazzi."

In fact, this study has had a huge effect on my life. I was struggling trying to decide whether to pay cash on the barrelhead for a modest home back in the Midwest or to go for a new Corvette with all the options. But instead I decided to go "all in" and ordered up one of each from Canon's prime telephoto family of EF lenses. It was a little heavy carrying them all in a backpack but I worked out a system where I have the 300mm and 800mm slung over the left shoulder, the 400mm and 600mm over the right shoulder, with the 500mm hooked up to my camera body by default. Tripods are for children, I shoot all of these handheld rock solid.

I'm getting out of software engineering as a result of all of this. I have a deal lined up with Mountaineers Press to expand Paul Bannick's "The Owl and the Woodpecker" into a series of books that photographically explore some lesser known ecological relationships among birds. The first two titles are tentatively going to be "The Alcid and the Hummingbird" and "The Shorebird and the Warbler."

Todd Sahl
Seattle, WA



From: Matt Bartels <mattxyz at earthlink.net>
To: Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 1, 2016 4:29 AM
Subject: [Tweeters] Birds and photography - a new study

This surprised me, and I thought I?d share.
Contrary to so much discussion on our list, it appears that birds actually like being photographed and watched closely.
A recent study in Britain compared two groups of birds. One was repeatedly photographed, stared at with binoculars and generally ?intruded? upon. The other was left fully alone. The results: Over time, the birds facing photographers and other intruders were healthier, longer-lived, and successfully fledged more young. The result persisted and was replicated over multiple repetitions of the study, across many different species of bird.
Scientists speculate that the same tendency to produce gaudy plumage and display -- a sort of avian narcissism -- is responsible for this bias towards being observed.
I?ll leave the science to the experts, but I wonder how it might affect our discussions here? I?ve long avoided bringing a camera along on my birding adventures ? some of this was just for convenience, but I liked to think maybe I was treading with a lighter footprint by not pushing to get closer for photos. Perhaps all along my behavior has been selfish and I should get into photography after all?
Will those who have written so strongly against the ?big honkin? lens? set now reconsider? Many of us are drawn to birding in part because of the allure of observing but not intruding ? if we learn that intruding is actually better for nature, are we willing to change our own behavior? Or will we find that our behavior is driven more by our preferences than our concern for birds? well-being? After a revelation as radical as this, it would seem that maybe a little more humility is called for when we next find ourselves eager to scold others on the list for other behavior we find obviously ?wrong...? Then again, maybe the next study will prove that being intemperate on the internet is somehow valuable - anything is possible?
You never know what science will prove next!

Matt Bartels
Seattle, WA


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