Jonathmartinez

well as ever the main problem is the amount of photographer and the pressure on the bird it results rather than these practices which to me may not be harmful if use sporadicaly by a single photographer during the all breeding process time. The problem to me is that photographers tends to go always to the same places and are attempting to get picture of the same birds, after... It is particulary true in Hongkong with probably some of the highest density of photographer in Asia, but also true in most of famous reserve in Asia...then I would totally join Geoff in his concern that even a different single photographer (it is often more than that) attempting everyday to take a picture of the same bird using playback create a big disturbance to the bird and reduce greatly its breeding success...In the other hand, a photographer that would go to any poorly visited place finding its own birds on a remote trail and use playback to get pics of it would be to me a minor disturbance...But I'm not sure that it is even possible in Hongkong...
To me the pleasure to get a good picture is not only to press the shutter, but all this process before that lead to the finding of a great bird and the solution found to get the right pic which often do not require any playback, but just a good analysis of the bird movment and favorite perch...

Feeding bird come to the same category to me.

Picture at nest would require hight binding precaution that I'm sure nobody are taking and are definitly best banish as a conservative approch...there is dozen of solution to take picture of birds without creating any disturbance...the best of all to me are a bathing pool, since birds are always very alert and cautious (so isk to put the bird in danger is reduce) when go bathing and it can provide great proximity...and most of bird species are drinking and bathing almost everyay...then just need the right weather and place...

Jonathmartinez

this is a totally different polemic... I see no link between illegal poaching in China and abusive method of some wildlife photographer in Hong Kong.
I'm sure nobody want to hear about any bird with a sewing needle emerging from his throat or any yearling owls killed by dogs because of photographers disturbed them at nest...all this has happened and will happened again if wildlife photographer do not behalve themself and try to stick at a minimum of deontology code...
If nature lover, birdwatcher and photographer do not show the example how can we take the right and get the position to point out wildlife crime and other things that are going wrong...

If I'm the first persuaded that recent development of wildlife photography is one of the best things that happened in China recently, it does not mean that photographers have the right to do everyhting and finish to f...cked up what the poachers and heavy development has left..
Even in China, good habitat left are located in few very small pocket that to me are at very hight risk...
I will not blame photographers because I'm convinced that most of them are just not aware of the impact and the possible consequencies of what they are doîg, but education and information are to me a deep need...

Jonathmartinez

we're getting too far from the initial debate to me...
To me the initial post was not against photographers at all, but against the way some of them behave without thinking of the consequencies of what they are doing...
There is possibly as much to said from some birdwatchers behaviour but this was not the initial debate to me... I don't think many birdwatcher are baiting bird appart from their balcony (even I'm not totally against baiting birds if it is made temporaly and with intelligence to get pics of a bird), I also don't think many birdwatcher are trying to get bird as close as taking a picture require...usually many are allready sastified with a glimpse of the bird...I'm not sure many birdwatcher are getting so close to an egretry as photographer recently did in TPK....This is a totally different activities which are not comparable here in my opinion...
I also don't think that because China has a large poaching scale that it means everybody can do whatever they want with birds unless it is not kill them...

I just remember this picture of a group of dozen of photographers standing 10 meters away from a nest of Black Drongo at Mai Po...PLEASE!!!!just a bit of common sense, and just think that the life of these birds are much more important than a couple of pics of a species that can be easily made the rest of the year without risking the success of their brood...