[Birding-Aus] Australian Painted Snipe in Dubbo

[Frank Hemmings]

Hi All,

As part of our twitchathon effort, the Bumbling Bee-eaters (David Eldridge, David Hair and myself) saw an Australian Painted Snipe in Dubbo on Saturday afternoon; this was in the first 10 birds seen on the trip and congratulations to Dave Eldridge for spotting it. The bird, a female, was sitting low in a small pond off Fitzroy St, N of the itnersection with River St & off the E side of the road. There were 2 small ponds, and it was sitting on the edge of the smaller, further pond; it turns out that this is actually closer to the end of Dowton Drive off River St. Grid coordinates from Google Earth 32deg 13min 54.1sec S, 148deg 37min, 3.6sec E. This was a lifer for me which I hadn't expected on this trip, and to see this bird without expecting it at a site was a great suprise.

Also of note were 2 Brolgas on a tank seen from Coolbaggie Forest Rd, 4km from Eumungerie at 31deg 57min 43 sec S, 148deg 39min 32sec E.

I'm not sure if either of these are still there but I'm sure some may be interested in finding them. All up we recorded 185 species between Dubbo and Newcastle - not bad for a first time run. Cheers,

Frank

Frank Hemmings
Curator
John T. Waterhouse Herbarium
School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of New South Wales
UNSW SYDNEY 2052
AUSTRALIA

Tel +61 2 9385 3274
Fax +61 2 9385 1558

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[Keith Brandwood]

Why are we still giving out coordinates for endangered species such as the
Painted Snipe or any other endangered species on this forum. Please lets
stop this practice from today.All that is required is to ask them to contact
you if they want to see the species, then after vetting them you can decide
on whether you want to tell them. Collecting rare wildlife can assure you is
still alive and kicking.

Hi All,

Frank

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[Carl Clifford]

Keith,

I heartily agree.

Carl Clifford

[Peter Shute]

I know this is true for birds on the nest, (especially parrots?) but would someone really collect a Painted Snipe or a Brolga?

Peter Shute


--------------------------
Sent using BlackBerry

[Chris Sanderson]

I'm sure there's a private or museum collection out there that doesn't have
one yet...

Regards,
Chris

[Keith Brandwood]

Hi Peter, my main concern was the Painted Snipe, and yes I do believe that
there are people who would take a Painted Snipe for their collection. Its no
different than collecting feathers a subject that as been discussed recently
on this forum. Collecting feathers appears to be a harmless pastime on the
surface but you can imagine someone who as all the feathers of all the
parrot species except for the Night Parrot. I could easily see such a person
trying to find out where to find one and going out and shooting it to get
the feather.You only have to see what some of the fanatical Twitchers get up
to at times to understand the need to be alert to whom you give information
to. Thankfully it is only a small minority that are involved in such
behaviour.

[Carol Probets]

David Geering has asked me to post the following response to this
thread as he is not currently on Birding-Aus:

I see no issues with posting the coordinates of species such as this.
The NSW Dept of Environment, Climate Change & Water has a policy that
coordinates for certain sensitive species are not to be released.
These include species of high biological significance, for which no
records will be provided at all; species considered to be at serious
risk from threats such as disturbance or exploitation; species
considered to be at medium to high risk of threats such as
disturbance or exploitation.

Surely, people knowing the whereabouts of a snipe or Brolga are
hardly going to open the floodgates on illegal collecting. Does
anyone know of any such illegal activities? Perhaps they should
raise these concerns with their state wildlife agency.

What I think is a more serious issue is birdwatchers NOT reporting
threatened species to their relevant state wildlife agencies. I
repeatedly do searches of the DECCW Wildlife Atlas for areas where
major developments are proposed to find that there are few records of
threatened species that can be used to guide the department's
response to development. By reporting these threatened species
birdwatchers would actively be doing something positive for bird
conservation.

David Geering
Threatened Species Officer
Biodiversity Conservation Unit, North-west Branch
Department of Environment, Climate Change & Water
P.O. Box 2111
Dubbo NSW 2830

At 4:38 PM +1100 2/11/09, Keith Brandwood wrote:
>Why are we still giving out coordinates for endangered species such
>as the Painted Snipe or any other endangered species on this forum.
>Please lets stop this practice from today.All that is required is to
>ask them to contact you if they want to see the species, then after
>vetting them you can decide on whether you want to tell them.
>Collecting rare wildlife can assure you is still alive and kicking.

[Colin R]

Hi

Without wanting to start a flame war or appearing overly disbelieving -
is there any evidence of the type of behaviour you're describing - here
or anywhere else? i.e people shooting birds for a feather collection or
collecting specimens such as Painted Snipe for a 'collection'? Egg
collecting is one thing - for a lot of birders that was their first
introduction to birds and birding... but shooting and 'collecting'? Does
that actually happen?

Colin
Brisbane

--
Colin Reid
jan...@fastmail.fm
So many birds, so little time......

--
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[Keith Brandwood]

Hi David, I agree with you that it is very important to know the whereabouts
and status of threatened species ect. but surely that dose not mean you have
to broadcast the coordinates to every man and his dog.A much better result
can be arrived at by educating the observers/birdwatchers to report such
sightings directly to the relevant organization. This will at least minimize
any threats that may occur from unscrupulous people.

[Bob Green]

I remember some years ago hearing about a group of boys being caught by the local Parks and Wildlife people with dead birds they had "collected", they were for someones bird feet collection!
Hard to imagine but true.

Bob Green

[Tim Jones]

Peter,

What do the 'fanatical Twitchers' do? I reckon this is mostly just sensationalised hearsay. I see so much prattle about the terrible harm they do, but I have yet to see a properly substantiated report of something which has had any serious effect on wildlife and I've been on many, many 'fanatical twitches' in my time.

There are a few people who go a bit too far in their pursuit, but most 'fanatical twitchers' are also fanatical conservationists and also want future generations to share their joy of seeing wonderful places and wonderful wildlife.

I just wish people would get things in proportion. This kind of statement tars us all with the same brush and just gets us all a bad name.

NB I'm not arguing about the need to be judicious with information.

Cheers

Tim

_________________________________________________________________
View photos of singles in your area Click Here
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[Chris Sanderson]

Hi Tim,

I believe in the UK a small number of rare birds have died from constant
harassment leading to an inability to feed to recover from a long trip.
This is possibly what Peter is referring to? Also I hear from various
sources of cases where twitchers (usually identity unknown) have been
observed by landholders to tresspass to look for birds. This still appears
to be a sadly common occurrence, though as you say, its not fair to tar all
twitchers with that brush as I know many who wouldn't enter a property
without permission. However those that do give all birders, not just
twitchers, a bad name with the general public.

I will say this though, a recent study by our own Dr Laurie Knight showed
that the more fanatical a twitcher is, the less they care about
conservation. That's hard data from a fairly broad survey there (I hope
I've paraphrased your work correctly there Laurie, feel free to jump in if
I'm misquoting).

As for earlier questions about collectors, I'd love to hear from someone in
the customs department, but I know for a fact they are still finding living
animals being smuggled, and I have little doubt that the same would go for
dead animals - there are a lot of people for whom collecting skins/specimens
is akin to stamp collecting (or pokemon for the younger people out there
reading this...gotta catch em all). Look no further than our own official
bodies - out there looking to collect one or several of the newly found
Spotted Quail-Thrush in Far North QLD before they even know if its a new
species or even how many there are in the population...

Back to the point at hand. I thought the objection was over GPS
co-ordinates being given in an open online forum. A general location in the
email with an offer of directions offline would be fine I would think, as
suggested by an earlier poster. At least that means someone wanting to
break the law has to leave evidence in the form of an email if they want the
details.

Regards,
Chris

[John Tongue]

Hi Keith and all,
I'm sure it's wise not to publicise grid reference to all and sundry
for locations of rare and endangered species.

I'm also aware that there may be 'fanatical twitchers' out there who
do the wrong thing at times. However, I also think comments such as
these tend to reinforce some people's prejudices against people who
might broadly consider themselves 'twitchers', and can lead to people
being reticent about reporting lots of sightings, and thereby limiting
the possibility to have their sightings verified by another observer.

I can think of a case a couple of years ago where a visiting birder to
Tasmania deliberately did not report what he claimed was a Yellow
Wagtail on theWest Coast of Tasmania until weeks later, after he'd got
home. He said this was because he didn't want all the Twitchers going
and disturbing it. Now, I'm not averse to calling myself a
'Twitcher' (among other things), and this birder's tardiness in
reporting, because of some pre-conception about 'Twitchers', not only
denied me a tick, but also denied anyone's possibility of verifying
his sighting of what would be a significant species for Tasmania.

This Birder's impression of twitchers may have come from his own
bitter experiences, but they may also have arisen from other people's
comments, or at least been re-inforced by them.

Let's try to be careful about how we label certain groups within the
birding fraternity.

Cheers,
John Tongue
Ulverstone, Tas.

On 03/11/2009, at 11:28 AM, Keith Brandwood wrote:

> Hi Peter, my main concern was the Painted Snipe, and yes I do
> believe that there are people who would take a Painted Snipe for
> their collection. Its no different than collecting feathers a
> subject that as been discussed recently on this forum. Collecting
> feathers appears to be a harmless pastime on the surface but you can
> imagine someone who as all the feathers of all the parrot species
> except for the Night Parrot. I could easily see such a person trying
> to find out where to find one and going out and shooting it to get
> the feather.You only have to see what some of the fanatical
> Twitchers get up to at times to understand the need to be alert to
> whom you give information to. Thankfully it is only a small minority
> that are involved in such behaviour.
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Shute" <psh...@nuw.org.au>
> To: <carlsc...@gmail.com>; <kbran...@bigpond.com>
> Cc: <d.eld...@unsw.edu.au>; <birdi...@vicnet.net.au>
> Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 5:49 PM
> Subject: Re: [SPAM] [Birding-Aus] Australian Painted Snipe in Dubbo
>

===============================

[Denise Goodfellow]

I'd be interested in seeing Laurie's research. I've some US papers that
mention this as well.

I've twice, in 26 years, been guiding birders who have either entered
private property or gone into sensitive habitat. The last one, a woman just
a few months ago, entered a preschool grounds after a bird. A few have been
disgruntled when I refused to play tapes to call up birds in particular
areas.

The biggest issue in the Top End that I'm aware of is birders entering the
sewage ponds without a permit, resulting in management becoming very upset
to the point of threatening to arrest them. Consequently, access to the
ponds has been further tightened.

However, in my experience up here, combat or gonzo birders (as they're
called in the US) tend to put themselves at risk more than the birds, for
instance insisting on going out when it's very hot and humid. Two, whom I
refused to accompany one stinking hot afternoon, later collapsed with heat
exhaustion.

The desire to systematise eg by stamp collecting or twitching, seems to be a
feature of the male brain according to research I've read.
Denise

Denise Lawungkurr Goodfellow
PO Box 3460 NT 0832, AUSTRALIA
Ph. 61 08 89 328306
Mobile: 04 386 50 835

Birdwatching and Indigenous tourism consultant
PhD Candidate

http://www.denisegoodfellow.com.au
http://www.earthfoot.org
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/baby-dreaming
http://www.ausbird.com
http://birderstravel.com
http://www.theloveofood.com (Rowan Goodfellow Thompson)

[Denise Goodfellow]

Back in the late 1980s a Parks and Wildlife Ranger refused to grant Hilary
Thompson and me a permit to care for injured and orphaned wildlife. At the
time there were very few carers and so we were often asked to take injured
or orphaned animals.

We wanted a permit because half a cozen people we knew who had been told
they didn't need one, had later had their animals seized. Such people
included our school headmaster, who for years had been caring for native
birds, and was quite an authority.

The ranger refused on the grounds that we might, for instance, go out and
find a nest of Pheasant Coucal chicks, report them as orphaned, "break their
legs" (heavens knows why he added this), then when the legs had healed,
smuggle them overseas.

I decided it was not in our best interests to continue taking in wildlife.
We do collect roadkills, having been asked to by staff at the NT Museum, but
that's all.

Denise Lawungkurr Goodfellow
PO Box 3460 NT 0832, AUSTRALIA
Ph. 61 08 89 328306
Mobile: 04 386 50 835

Birdwatching and Indigenous tourism consultant
PhD Candidate

http://www.denisegoodfellow.com.au
http://www.earthfoot.org
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/baby-dreaming
http://www.ausbird.com
http://birderstravel.com
http://www.theloveofood.com (Rowan Goodfellow Thompson)

> http://clk.atdmt.com/NMN/go/150855801/direct/01/==============================

[Carl Clifford]

I hope you referred all injured and orphaned wildlife enquiries to the
ranger in question from then on. And also advised those who contacted
you to go to the media if refused assistance.

Cheers,

Carl Clifford

[Denise Goodfellow]

Yes, they do, but are less likely to according to the research.
Denise

on 4/11/09 7:48 AM, John Tongue at js...@iprimus.com.au wrote:

> So women don't twitch or stamp collect???
>
> John Tongue
> Ulverstone, Tas.

>> Denise Lawungkurr Goodfellow
>> PO Box 3460 NT 0832, AUSTRALIA
>> Ph. 61 08 89 328306
>> Mobile: 04 386 50 835
>>
>> Birdwatching and Indigenous tourism consultant
>> PhD Candidate
>>
>> http://www.denisegoodfellow.com.au
>> http://www.earthfoot.org
>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/baby-dreaming
>> http://www.ausbird.com
>> http://birderstravel.com
>> http://www.theloveofood.com (Rowan Goodfellow Thompson)
>>
>>
>>

>>> On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 6:06 PM, Tim Jones <tim_j...@hotmail.com>

>>>> http://clk.atdmt.com/NMN/go/150855801/direct/01/www.birding-aus.org

[Alan Gillanders]

Well said Carl.

Back in the late 70s and early 80s I used to care for wildlife, often
brought to me by national parks and forestry staff. When threatened with
prosecution if I did not get a permit, I stopped. But to be honest I was
becoming tired of the practise anyway. Most of the effort was going into
common species and I decided to put my effort into changing the management
of habitat and extending protection.
Regards,
Alan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Clifford" <
>I hope you referred all injured and orphaned wildlife enquiries to the
>ranger in question from then on. And also advised those who contacted you
>to go to the media if refused assistance.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Carl Clifford

===============================

[Peter Madvig]

Denise,

Re yr Rangers.......beaurocracy gone mad?! I think some of these folk are
officious to such a degree they must lack any sense of practical
application. WHERE do they get their training, and from whom??

regards,
Peter Madvig

[Penny Brockman]

Fanatical twitchers in Australia are unlikely to be problem - so far. However, I hear things are not so rosy in the UK where there are 1,000s/10,000s ?? of fanatical twitchers prepared to fly from one end of the country to the other at the drop of a new vagrant. The Scilly Isles landowners seem to have a grouch and there have been reports of areas closed from twitchers.

> http://clk.atdmt.com/NMN/go/150855801/direct/01/==============================www.birding-aus.org

[Denise Goodfellow]

I sent all enquiries on to Parks & Wildlife, and yes, I did some jumping up
and down with the media.

I later tried to get P & W (and the parks authority in Kakadu) to act
against tour operators who were ramming crocodiles with their boats.
Nothing happened and so I ran a national campaign against such operators.
The NT News was the only publication not to print my letter.

Incidentally I had some very good friends among the rangers. One, Bruce
Weribone, I met when he came to our house to inspect the living quarters of
an injured goanna, telling us it looked so healthy he felt like moving in
too! We later worked together training Indigenous rangers in Katherine -
Bruce was their supervisor.
Denise

[Graham Turner]

Surely a lack of data should lead to the precautionary principal being
applied rather than believing (hoping) there is no problem.

Graham Turner

Peter,

Cheers

Tim

http://clk.atdmt.com/NMN/go/150855801/direct/01/==========www.birding-aus.org

[lic...@ozemail.com.au]

Denise,
The reference to 'breaking their legs" probably relates to an old practice in South East Asia.
When the nestlings were discovered, their legs would be broken as it had been observed that they would heal very quickly.
The logic was that this was due to the parent Pheasant Coucal  finding a secret herb & feeding it to the chick & that would effect the rapid healing. If the legs were subsequently broken again then this would doubly concentrate the 'healing essence' within the chick & so would be passed on to whoever harvested it & ate it.

 Chris



On Wed Nov 4 2:06 , Denise Goodfellow sent:

> http://clk.atdmt.com/NMN/go/150855801/direct/01/==============================

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)

[Graham Turner]

My research shows they are more likely to be shopping.

[John Tongue]

So women don't twitch or stamp collect???

John Tongue
Ulverstone, Tas.

On 04/11/2009, at 5:26 AM, Denise Goodfellow wrote:

[L&L Knight]

Thanks for the reference Chris. To clarify the situation, as those of
you who did the survey may recall, I asked people to rank seven
potential uses of Birding Aus in order of importance. These were
reports of bird sightings, planning trips, equipment issues, informal
contact with other birders, bird identification, bird welfare
discussions and discussions of environmental issues.

I factor analysed people's responses with SPSS. The Items with the
strongest loadings on the first factor were:
Environment .713

Bird Welfare .670

Sightings -.709

Trip Planning -.780

In other words, people who rated discussing environmental and bird
welfare issues highly were likely to give a low ranking to being
informed about bird sightings and planning trips.

Hard core twitchers were primarily concerned with being informed about
bird sightings.

Moderate twitchers were also strongly interested in bird sightings.
They also gave planning trips a higher priority than the other groups.

So, there is some substance to Chris' comment regarding fanatical
twitchers. However, I didn't directly test people's concern about the
environment - just the priority given to alternative uses of Birding-
Aus. There may be quite a few hard core twitchers who are passionate
about protecting the environment.

It must be time to do another survey :)

Regards, Laurie

[Mike Collard]

Hi all,

As a lurker from the UK ( although I have birded in Australia and enjoyed
wonderful help from this email group ) I thought I should add some thoughts
about twitching in the UK.

1) There are some who will go long distances and spend money to get a new UK
bird; recent example was a Sandhill Crane on Orkney; not that easy to get
to; damage to the environment is the fuel used to get folks there; it added
some revenue to the island though!
2) There are many who will go 200 miles for a good bird; invariably
collections are organised if it fits in with either the reserve the bird was
found in or who found it; eg. the local non-birding vicar found a
White-crowned Sparrow so an amazing £5k was collected; his church was
blessed with some new glass including an image of the said Sparrow.
3) Twitching does not really cause a problem; I am sure many of the rares
that are twitched never get to their destination anyway; now and again there
is some trespass and sometimes the bird gets too much attention but that is
about it in the UK; honest!

The Isles of Scilly has done ok because of birders over the years; boatman
make substantial money on ferrying birders around the small islands to catch
up with rares. Lots of hotels and pubs are full of birders at certain times;
again revenue generation.

The serious and continuing danger to all our birds ( including common
species ) are eggers, developers, shooters of game birds and duck, crooked
and poor environmental consultants, insipid Councils and Governments over
the years who let people with clout rule and sadly a number of landowners.
The lack of insects in the countryside is frightening; go for a drive years
ago and your car lights would get covered in insects, but not any more.

Best/ Mike Collard

[Tony Russell]

Hi all, I found Mike's note interesting , particularly in para 2 in
which he talks of UK twitchers travelling 200 miles for a bird.
200 Miles !!
Well well, it's a bit different here in Oz where we frequently travel
many thousands of km for a tick. I hate to think how often I've done
Adelaide to Perth, Darwin, Cairns, Werribee, Cape York, The Kimberleys,
Christmas Is, Ashmore Reef, Norfolk and Lord Howe, Tasmania, trips into
the outback, etc etc in search of a single bird ( and usually getting
it) and thinking little of it - except when I've dipped out like we did
last weekend chasing the Southern Fulmar at Portland, pest of a thing !!

Tony.

-----Original Message-----
From: birding-a...@vicnet.net.au
[mailto:birding-a...@vicnet.net.au] On Behalf Of Mike Collard
Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 5:09 AM
To: birding aus
Subject: Re: [SPAM] [Birding-Aus] Australian Painted Snipe in Dubbo

Hi all,

As a lurker from the UK ( although I have birded in Australia and
enjoyed
wonderful help from this email group ) I thought I should add some
thoughts
about twitching in the UK.

1) There are some who will go long distances and spend money to get a
new UK
bird; recent example was a Sandhill Crane on Orkney; not that easy to
get
to; damage to the environment is the fuel used to get folks there; it
added
some revenue to the island though!
2) There are many who will go 200 miles for a good bird; invariably
collections are organised if it fits in with either the reserve the bird
was
found in or who found it; eg. the local non-birding vicar found a

White-crowned Sparrow so an amazing £5k was collected; his church was

[Colin R]

Hi all

Just like to make an observation relating to accessing private property
- in my experience this is a real issue in Australia. Owners seem to
have some sort of possession fixation relating to their vast, mostly
uninhabitated land! In the UK and Ireland there is a much more flexible,
friendly attitude towards birders and others, such as walkers, accessing
property. In most cases so long as gates are left as found - usually
closed - and stock left unmolested, there is no major drama. Please do
not equate my comments to some one walking through MY front yard - its
not the same, sorry, can't accept that argument. The fact that some
people do access property for the purposes of shooting illegally - that
I can accept - but its usually fairly obvious you're not carrying a
rifle, isn't it?

Anyway - must away - thanks for your time!

Cheers

Colin

Chris's observations regarding the deaths of rare vagrants may, repeat
may, have some truth - however, in general birders are not seen as such
a threat as they often appear here and yes, I too have heard of the
issues on the Scilly Isles, but we are talking extremes here, not the
norm.

--
Colin Reid
jan...@fastmail.fm
So many birds, so little time......

--
http://www.fastmail.fm - A fast, anti-spam email service.

===============================