Well stated Philip,
While I agree that bullying and insults have no place on Birding-aus I do
believe that using the correct names and encouraging new members to do the
same is very important. If a person sees what they believe to be species A
and they add that to their list that is great but when that record reaches
the public domain it needs to be verified. A robust discussion, minus any
insults or aggression, is a healthy thing. People can get very precious
about someone questioning their records but it is not a personal attack but
a method of determining the veracity of the record. Often the people doing
the questioning have made mistakes in their past and realise that bird ID is
not always simple, despite the plethora of field guides. While I totally
oppose any personal attacks on other people on the list it is important to
allow a robust discussion and to question records and to be a bit 'pedantic'
about the use of names and their spelling.
I encourage new posters to not be too sensitive as most people that I know
on the list are very helpful and friendly. I do know that sometimes people
send unacceptable responses directly to people that have posted on the list.
This should not happen and it is sad that people leave the list due to one
or two people who do not behave ethically towards others.
Regards
Greg
Dr Greg. P. Clancy
Ecologist and Birding-wildlife Guide
PO Box 63 Coutts Crossing NSW 2460
02 66493153 0429601960
www.gregclancyecologistguide.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Philip Veerman
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 11:13 AM
To: 'Peter Shute' ; 'Philip,kylie,Joshua,noah'
Cc:
Subject: Mundane & useless threads! Back to Night Parrots
andidentifying birds correctly
Thanks Peter,
That is exactly correct. I am the other Philip ("that poster was
suggesting") who raised that point. My point being, yes of course I hope
there are Night Parrots there. But before we get excited about jumping on
nocturnal graders and scouting for Night Parrots, I would wish to be
confident there is some basis to think that the birds being seen aren't some
other parrot species, or even pratincoles, quails or god knows what, that
happen to be birds roosting on the ground at night. I don't know the birding
credentials of the grader driver or how easy it is to identify birds in
those conditions. Knowing the sort of misidentifications that non birders
and even some of us, come up with (we all must know stories), my guess is:
that he is flushing birds at night and is aware of the name "night parrot"
and largely on that basis, says ahah I'm seeing Night Parrots. That is why I
want to know what other species this guy is flushing at night. There must be
other species flushed too. On the basis of what other birds would be there,
I am certain if all or most are things he sees, he claims as "night parrots"
well that simply is not credible. So are any? If some truly are, well that
is good news. How often do you hear people referring to Chimpanzees as
"monkeys" or dubbing of sounds of Chimpanzees with footage of monkeys. Even
with our closest relatives, people make wording mistakes.
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