tgraham

Whilst I agree with previous posts that it is totally up to the finder of any bird, be it rare or not, whether they share the location to other people personally I don’t understand why they would not want to.

The main reason I have heard are disturbance yet in the UK it is not unknown for 1000 people to turn up at a rare bird at the same time with no adverse effect. In HK if 30 people turned up at the same time that would be unusual. If somebody is deliberately disturbing the bird then there are plenty of forums to name and shame that person as has been done in the past.

From my experience the majority of birdwatchers in HK are very keen to share their finds with fellow birdwatchers even to the extent that special arrangements have been made to access private land the past

Personally if I was lucky enough to find a rare bird I would make every effort to ensure as many people saw and photographed it as possible however is it right that somebody who decided not reveal the location of a rare bird they found goes and see birds other people have found and shared with the birding community.

HK Twitcher

tgraham

I agree with John nobody was advocating withdrawing the membership of anyone who does not want to share the location of  birds they find its totally up to the individual.

The more members the better for the Society and birdwatching in general

I think what people are saying is that should somebody not wish to share the information then they should not use the HKBWS web site to ask for help in identification or just to publish their photographs for the following reasons

1.        It is a condition that anyone posting a photograph on the societies web site should include a time and date. You can not have exceptions
2.        It will hopefully mean that executive members, employees and volunteers of the HKBWS are not put in an awkward position where they may be given information regarding a location and told not to publish it

There is a mechanism in place using a Rare Bird Records form for submitting rare bird findings the details of how to do it are one the HBWS web site

With regards to disturbance as far as I can determine most people believe that this is not an issue in HK with the exception of breeding or roosting birds.  Yes there has been the odd minor incident but we can name and shame.

As for my final comment I have always believed that it is unacceptable for somebody who is not willing to share their finds to go and see and photograph birds other people have found and shared.

BTW can you put finding rare birds on hold until I return to HK in five weeks.

HK Twitcher