My first and last word: in nearly forty years' birding (FYI I started on 7 November 1970 in Hartlepool, UK, when myself, my P6 teacher, and probably about 30 other 10 year old kids, found a Great Grey Shrike at an unusual suburban location, by strange coincidence) I cannot think of a bird that less needed any kind of 'protection' through any kind of secrecy than this bird: all it needed was for people to observe the only real rule that birders need to observe - don't flush the bird ie make the bird fly!!
Teach the all the masses of non-birder photographers that simple rule and you've solved the problem.
Real, happy, fun birding thrives on the sharing of information, and people's enthusiasm for seeing birds.
At least one old gwailo birder in HK never came to terms with that, as you can read in some very tedious sections in recent HKBWS bulletins.
Mike Turnbull.
