Birding hazards....

["martin butterfield" <>]

Thus far I have avoided being seriously harassed for birding in Australia.  Obviously I am not adveturous enough.  However.........

 

In Burma I was looking at an Indian Shag sitting on a pole in the middle of a Lake and was arrested by the traffic police.  They thought I was taking a photograph of Ne Win's residence (4km away on the far side of a pine forest).  3 hours later after a session with some 10 cops in the back rooms of the Prome Road police station they took me back to my residence.

 

Just after we moved to Tanzania I was wandering the streeets near the Hotel we were staying in and looking at weavers.  Then I walked back to the hotel and nearly made it when a uniformed local waving an AK47 suggested his Commander needed to converse with me about photographing the Vice-Presidents House - where the weavers were located.  After 30 minutes of grovelling I made it back to the Hotel.  (Since the Commander was wearing Pyjamas resembling Manchester United uniform I am glad it wasn't yesterday, as he would probably have been in an even worse mood.)
 

On 5/21/07, <m("csiro.au","Brendan.Lepschi");"> > wrote:

I had a similar incident back in the Atlassing days.  I was wandering around a patch of bush along the Kings Hwy , when I was stopped by a man in a car on a farm track on the property.  Turned out he was not a farmer, as I initially thought, but a member of the local nudists club, who owned the land so that club activities could take place out of public sight.  Given that I was carrying binoculars AND a camera, I had to do some heavy explaining to get out of that one…

 

Brendan

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Philip Veerman [mailto:m("pcug.org.au","pveerman");" target="_blank"> ]
Sent: Monday, 21 May 2007 4:31 PM
To: Leo Berzins; m("canberrabirds.org.au","canberrabirds");" target="_blank">
Subject: [canberrabirds] Newline gate and brown treecreepers

 

That is like an incident that happened to me many years ago (during the COG Atlas), when I stopped to watch the ducks (and have some lunch) on the driveway beside someone's farm dam (On I think Williamsdale Road between Monaro Highway & Burra. I didn't get out of my car but there was a group of shovelers indulging in some entertaining courting activity). Some half hour later a police car zoomed up and then I was asked what I was doing and told of concern about my activities. I heard the story that there had recently been some problems with people shooting at the horses or something like that.

 

We do need to be careful. People don't always think we are obviously just looking for / at birds. Not to mention that some people don't want us there, looking for / at birds. No doubt there are many stories like that.

 

Philip