Never Presume

On Saturday, Dec. 13, I went to Great Swamp. Since my retirement I usually don't go to popular birding spots on the weekends, but that day I was restless. A Barred owl had been reported for weeks in the area and I wanted to see it, even tho' I've seen and heard them before so it wasn't a life bird.

At this time of year owls are active. One of the very few things I miss about the days when I'd have to rise before 4 a.m. and catch a train to get me to work by 7 a.m. was hearing the hooting of the owls most commonly found in my area - Great Horned, Screech and Barred.

"Barred Owl" by btrentler is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

I did a lot of walking that day in the cold at the Swamp, and found a lot of birds including two bald eagles and northern harriers. But no owls. I have yet to find an owl unless it was pointed out to me. So when I started back to where I'd parked and saw a group of people up the road with their long lenses pointed in the same direction, I knew the owl had been spotted. I got to them very quickly.

At first I saw nothing, but one of the men literally positioned me in front of him and told me to start looking up a particular tree. Then I saw the bird.

I like Barred owls. Unlike the Great Horned or the Screech, this owl has dark eyes. It is grayish-brown and has streaking on its white breast - the barring - to help it blend into its surroundings. It looked serene as it rested in the tree. It looked at all of us, at times turned its head. I wished I'd brought my own long-lensed camera.

I asked the man, had he found this bird, high in a tree set far back from the road. No, he said. It turned out to have been another man I had briefly spoken to earlier on the road.

I did not ask the name of any of the people assembled there, including the man who pointed me in the owl's direction. Nor did I offer my name. 

I had always thought birders didn't do such things. We are too busy looking for the birds we seek to follow the social niceties. I thought it was some sort of unsaid "code," like never broadcasting the exact position of an owl found during the day. Owls are night creatures and need to rest by day undisturbed.

What birders DO do is help someone see the bird they found. Among other more kindly reasons it allows them to say the sighting could be corroborated. 

I repaid the man by telling him about the two mature bald eagles I'd seen up the road just minutes before. He rushed there to take pictures, which he was still doing when I drove off.

Then I did something I now regret. So happy was I to have seen this owl I went to a Facebook birding-related page I follow to thank the man publicly. I noted the road - not the exact location - of the owl and said we hadn't exchanged names "per protocol" because I thought that's just how things are done.

After the page's administrator published the post I began to get blowback.

My use of the word "protocol" was questioned. I responded that maybe that was too strong a word. Some questioned why I would think birders so impolite as to not be friendly. A few criticized me for, they claimed, giving the location of the owl and urged me or the administrator to take down the post. One such person, a man I've birded with and know by name, said the Barred owl had been a "sacrificial lamb" for years. I don't know what he meant by that but I responded that he knew the road I had been on is a very long road and I had not noted the exact location.

As for the person saying I should take down the post, I responded that I'd said nothing wrong and if the administrator allowed it to be seen, HE knew I'd said nothing wrong.

The last comment I saw was, "What a bizarre thing to choose to post."

As of this morning 35 people "liked" what I had written, so these people understood what I was getting at.

But I am now very sure of several things:

Birders can't be classified as being all the same. While there are things we all do, some will be nice and some will be nasty. Some will give names and some won't.

Never publicly state anything about finding an owl, even in the most general of terms. In fact, don't state anything on Facebook. Keep your thoughts to yourself.

Never think you know everything, because you don't. As I've often said about myself, I'm no expert. This experience reinforces that belief.

Finally, never presume.

Never presume there is anything like a 'birding code" even if in decades of birding you can count on one hand and have fingers left over the number of times you and someone else have given your names. 

Never presume you can be friends with another birder. Just like in high school there are cliques and there are outsiders. I consider myself one of the latter.

Thank you to the man who helped me find the Great Swamp Barred owl.