Date: 6/26/26 12:28 am From: Dave DeReamus <becard...> Subject: Re: Willow Ptarmigan ethics - Erie County
Hi all,
I don't normally reply to posts like this, but thought I'd mention a few things.
First of all, I wasn't there to witness what happened that day. I was there on the 22nd and saw the bird that day. When I was there, birders were keeping a respectful distance and not chasing the bird around. It was working its way through the phragmites feeding on plants, and the last thing anyone wanted to do was push the bird back into deeper cover. Occasionally, the bird would actually walk TOWARDS the group, which often happens with tundra birds that have rarely, if ever, seen humans and therefore don't perceive them as a threat. I took my photos with a 500mm lens and still had to do some cropping on them because of the distance.
If this person was literally chasing the bird around, then that's an issue, but if the bird walked towards the group, in my opinion, the correct thing to do was to stand still and let the bird do its thing. I would think that a group of birders suddenly moving to back away would startle the bird a lot more than everyone freezing in position. One personal example of this happened when I was photographing a Bahama Mockingbird in Florida. The bird dropped down from the fence it was on and proceeded to hop past my feet! I stood perfectly still until the bird got past me and continued feeding along the ground. Had I moved, there's no doubt that I would've have sent the bird flying.
As with anything, there are a few 'bad apples' that can make the whole group (birders, in this case) look bad. Hopefully, that wasn't the case here.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Geoff Malosh" <pomarine...>
To: "PABIRDS Listing Address" <PABIRDS...>
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2026 1:34:55 PM
Subject: Re: Willow Ptarmigan ethics - Erie County
I know the people well who have now been photographed and posted in an eBird checklist related to this. Since they have been posted and criticized publicly, I think it's reasonable for me to post publicly about them as well. They're not on this listserv. They're actually very nice people, if you can believe it! They're relatively new to our thing and not dialed into the birding community yet at all. The kid is very enthusiastic about birding, and quite highly skilled already, and his dad, while not in the least interested in birds himself, has been very encouraging of his son's new interest -- including doing things like driving several hours so his son can see some weird chicken on a beach.
We've all had birds walk or fly up to us before, like this bird did to this kid. Things like ruffed grouse, shorebirds, vagrant flycatchers, warblers at Magee Marsh, a robin on the porch, maybe even a ptarmigan on the Arctic tundra. Birds do unexpected and counterintuitive things sometimes. Should he and everyone else present have backed off? I wasn't there, but, okay, yes, he should have. Should he have not been anywhere close in the first place, so that the bird could not walk up to him if it tried? I guess all the armchair QBs can reasonably argue that too. Knowing him and his father, I am certain he would have backed off if he was approached by concerned birders in a reasonable manner. And to repeat, the bird literally walked up to this kid, on its own. Who here wouldn't actually take a picture or twenty with a big smile on your face, if it was you?
Not everything is black and white, in other words. The flip side of all this is the birding community's penchant for always assuming the worst in people anytime a story like this comes up. Assuming, as here, that this kid (and I suppose most everyone else present?) was just being selfish and unthinking. I note that all responses to the original post here also immediately assumed the worst. Again, I wasn't there, but if I were to speculate about what went on (and from what I gathered from the parents' side of the story), I'd suggest that it was probably just... one of those things. Everyone there was likely being very respectful of the bird, waiting patiently for it to appear, at an appropriate distance initially, and the bird on its own closed the distance to the crowd once it finally walked out. Myself, I wouldn't immediately assume malicious or selfish intent from anyone there, especially given this particular situation and this particular species. Certainly enough birds have surprised me like that, over the years. Should everyone immediately back off in that situation? You can argue yes they should, but if they don't, and instead get wrapped up in enjoying an amazing moment with everyone else, that doesn't make any of them unethical. It’s just one of those things. From what I heard, nobody chased the bird out of the phrags to get a photo, or chased it a hundred yards down the beach or whatever, least of all this kid. If there is evidence that someone did do that, then yes we should all be concerned.
He's a young birder new to this stuff and was pretty thrilled to have had a tame bird that should be 4000 miles away in Alaska unexpectedly walk right up to him, and he's understandably distraught seeing his face posted publicly and being scolded this way with no way to respond. The place for commentary and correction, if it was even necessary at all, was in the field. I talked to his parents, and their story is that none of the several people also there said anything to him, and nobody said anything to his dad either, and lots of people had the chance but they were too busy enjoying the scene themselves. Now the net effect of all of this may well be to turn off a promising and skilled young birder from taking his new hobby any further. That's probably a worse outcome than some people taking close pictures of some lost bird, all things considered, and frankly I'm not convinced he or anyone else there did anything "wrong" in the first place.
