tomatofamily

Fight and flight is the survival mechanism of all species.  Just like us startled by a car when crossing the road without noticing a car coming by, we learn next time more alert when crossing the road.  And I do not think personally capturing the flight of a bird or a flock of birds is big disturbance to the welfare of the birds.  They just fly away no matter how far distance me and the birds when I walk pass by them in Mai Po.

[ Last edited by tomatofamily at 27/02/2010 11:07 ]

tomatofamily

Thanks for the link.
Still, it is difficult to measure the disturbance unless it obviously is abusive, like those using car horns and rifles.  For instance, I once walked closed to one of the ponds inside Mai Po; and it happened that there were a couple of Cormorants ducking their heads in the water for food, when they headed up and found there was someone, me, there.  They were just scared of h and flipped their wings hysterically trying to fly away.  So, should I feel guilty.  I think even expert bird watchers came across such experience.  What would they do?  Can someone who is really an expert on bird's behavior tell what consequence such act would cause.  Some birds, as said in previous reply, are more sensitive to people (wonder if they can differentiate human to their predators?) than others.  Cormorant should be one of those.  As said before, my wife and I once walked at the trail and saw few hundred meters away a large flock of cormorants in the middle of wetland resting, and they (maybe only several) probably sensed our appearance and the whole flock starting from a few to whole lot flew away.  Such some called empathy behaviour could be caused by one or two or three very sensitive (I should not use neurotic).
BTW, Britain does enforce very touch law against photographers after  terrorists' acts against some of the cities in Britain.

tomatofamily

I should have crawlled if I knew my consequence of that act.  And I should have not entered the Reserve and I advise no people should have entered the Reserve.
And I should advise:

no bicycle riden there;
no grass cutting machine running there;
no groups touring there;
no car delivering the high rank people inside
no teaching/activities outside the education center;
no workshops inside the Reserve because of sawing and hammering sounds annoying the birds
and those that have potential disturbing birds activities there should be stopped

(those listed above are my come-across things happened inside the Reserve)

I am not trying to defend those intentionally offending the birds; but I want to say birds and human can be live peacefully together in the world (there is a common kingfisher happily habbiting inside Hong Kong Park no matter how noise and phototaking there).  Birds can be much stronger than we thought.  Just like some people here worrying putting GPS to some of the birds for research purpose; and the subsequent reports said Ok to them.  We protect the birds but not over-protect them and not trying to intervene a bunch of enforcement to stop people enjoying the birds.

Best regards.
Eric TO

[ Last edited by tomatofamily at 4/03/2010 11:44 ]

tomatofamily

Hi, Jonathan.
I think we are both nature lovers; and as a nature lover, I would not do harm to nature, including birds.  We family like to be in around nature.  When my son was young, we always took him to walk around the country parks.  I taught him catching small fish and shrimps from the streams (don't tell me that is harmful to the nature).  He has grown up to like being in nature.  What I am driving at here is those who are close to nature love nature.  And those who never or seldom go and when go says to BBQ, they would not care about how to take care of the environment, littering around.  Therefore, I would suggest to take another approach to educate people to love nature or to love birds in our interest.  We advocate how migrate birds can fly hundred miles for food or for living (and some of our young people could not bear failure and end up suicide); how birds can fly through the brushes without being hid; how birds can fly and land precisely on the thin wire and stand there without falling; how eagles see their preys from high above, how male of swifts take good care of the mothers and the babies, etc.  We glory them and learn from them and not pity them, over-protecting the and segregating them from human. As we should not over protect our young one by providing a lot of safe zones, and would not have chances to encounter any failure.  There are great programmes regarding animals extraordinary behaviour/actions (videos and photos) in National Geography channels and we used to love watching them and from there we became nature lovers too.   Therefore, do not ban them or denounce them; instead educate them, bring them to the nature and let them appreciate the nature.  I bet majority of bird photographers love nature and love birds.  Don't you think so!

Eric TO
Trained School Psychologist
Life member of HKWWF
Father of a 19 years old son, who just entered university