Tony Russell wrote
Further to my note of last night re the King Penguin. Is it just
possible that some of our birding fraternity have slipped back into secrecy
mode ? Interesting that some members knew about this rare visitor as
early as last Wednesday and apparently rang around some of their mates, but
nothing was put on birding-aus until Sunday night/Monday morning, which may have
been too late.
As it happened myself and some others were fortunate that the bird was
still there yesterday, but many more ( i.e. working people) could have had the
chance to see it if it had been reported on b-a before the
weekend.
Tony.
Hi all.
After not being able to log on to BAus since Monday
which I contacted Andrew Taylor about and now can, I find with SHOCK the
accusations flowing about the cover-up and supposed sharing info with
mates.
The reason I see this as a personal attack is this
I am the person who notified Mike Carter and Colin Rogers.
To set the record straight if any of the list
members kept it a secret from Wed then who are they Tony?
I first heard about it late on Fri night and it was
a very vague, scetchy report of a King Penguin that had apparently been seen on
a beach somewhere in our area and had swum out to sea. I notified both Colin
Rogers and Mike Carter of thi on Sat afternoon after not being able to gather
any better info, Rob Farnes then contacted me Sat night and all I could tell him
was that it had apparently been seen in our area, I didn't even know near which
town. I received a phone call Sun morning from a local (non-birder I add) to
tell me that it had been seen on Sat and whereabouts. I went down almost
immediately to investigate. Rob Farnes was there when I got there. I
notified one Port Mac birder and one Mt. Gambier birder while I was there, on my
return home I started letting people know.
I did not know that Colin Rogers was in Tas so
assumed that Colin would let people know, when I found out where he was I tried
to ring John Cox but he had changed his number and I got hold of David Harper
who happened to have J Cox visiting. From there on the report spread. My posting
to Birding Aus was sent from my computer at 9.47 after first seeing the penguin
at about 1230
Were you one of the birdos that came
down with John Cox?
The kind of message where the sender goes off with
only half the info they need to make an informed opinion should remain in the
trash.
Personally I thought that the network spread the
message fairly quickly and efficiently.
If anyone can think of a way to let people know
about sightings before we see them then please let me know.
Isn't it lucky I rang around some of my
mates.
Bob Green
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