Spent the day up there looking and did not find the bird. Checked all the usual spots mentioned in ebird and other sources to no avail. A Barred owl was hunting the power lines beyond the shooting range which was active in the afternoon. There were a dozen or more other cars with birders and photographers alike and to my knowledge no one located the bird at all.
Thank you,
Thank you,
Rob O'Connell
--Hi all,I apologize for starting this thread and had asked for it not to continue, but it did. I might as well add one more thing at this point though and that is that the most important thing here is the bird. That is why we all have gone up there? To see the bird?I just wanted to help lay down some ground rules since the initial requests made prior to mine apparently were not followed by some. And wanted to remind everyone why we drove to Milford. To see a Great Gray Owl which is a remarkable privilege and we owe it to that bird to give it space.I did not intend to sound like all photographers on Saturday were overstepping their bounds, but because 1 or 2 did, the photographers that showed up after joined that group and made a wall of people that may have been too close to the birds hunting territory. So let's all just try to respect this awesome bird and set an example to others that may show up after you. Let's not be selfish and worry about getting that amazing photo if it may interfere with the bird in any way. If the bird lands right next to you and you get a once in a lifetime opportunity, GREAT!! But if you look around a minute later and see the bird is surrounded 270 degrees by 30 other people, it may be time to start backing off.I'm sure most everyone that has gone up has been on their best behavior, but we ALL need to be on our best behavior and remember this beautiful bird is why we are there.Thanks for listening!Noah Gibb_Freeport, MaineOn Monday, January 23, 2017 8:20 PM, Justin Lawson <justindlawson@gmail.com> wrote:
the owl is fine and has been eating. calm down. if the bird wasnt eating it would be gone by now. hop on ebird and see photos of it eating and please stop trying to be the bird police to adults. what you should be focusing on if you wanna play detective is the locals that have a shooting range right behind where the owl was on sunday. a photographer that was there actually talked to them and asked them if they could please not shoot today at that location and they complied. there were numerous locals that seemed annoyed. worry about them shooting it so all us outsiders stop coming around. id say be careful with taking photos of people and their cars. i saw that happen last year in NYC while birding and the person got their ass beat for being a bird superhero. there are laws. if a person wants to walk on the other side of the street (literally 10 feet) they can. you exposing them for being legal makes you look like a fool. are they an asshole getting to close? sure if you wanna call them that but its not illegal. never forget. birds can fly. if they are pissed and unhappy there are 1000s of fields and marshes up there. its staying because its getting food and feels safe. bottom line. if people wanna protect birds please get a job application from the Maine's Warden service and imstead of the facebook bird group snitch. now go find some good birds !On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 8:08 PM Andrea Bean <abean60@gmail.com> wrote:This is so upsetting to hear. When I was there Friday, other than the Audobon van, there were only about 8 or 9 other people there. After seeing the owl, we left after about 35 minutes. No one went off of the road and kept their distance. What has been concerning me is I've not seen any photos of this owl eating. I did hear that Saturday was the worse day and that people were chasing it as it was flying from tree to tree parallel to the road, obviously trying to hunt. Short of trying to plead with people to please give this owl space, is there anything else that can be done? I myself would suggest taking their photos and posting them publicly but I know a lot of people aren't comfortable doing that. This is extremely distressing news. Will this owl be OK?
On Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 9:20:00 PM UTC-5, Noah Gibb wrote:To all birders and photographers,First of all, thanks to John Wyatt for finding this bird and getting the word out! I personally had never seen this species and am very fortunate that I had the opportunity this morning. Unfortunately, the experience was somewhat tainted due to a few individuals and eventually several not respecting the bird's space and livelihood (which should be the most important thing).From what I could see, all the birders and birder/photographers that I know and birders that I don't know remained on the opposite side of the roads that have the cleared area in front of the trees where the gas lines run. The owl obviously hunts and perches mostly on the side with the cleared area. This is where it will get it's food. All of those birders (to my knowledge) stayed behind their cars that were also parked on the side of the road opposite the cleared area. I personally feel like if everyone that was present obeyed that rule that this relatively tame species of owl would have no problem with it.When Leon Mooney, Josh Fecteau, Marian Zimmerman, and I arrived at Stud Mill Rd after just getting word that the bird was present only a minute before, the bird was nowhere in sight. Of course there was a line of cars lined opposite the cleared side (which is where the cars should be), but there was a man in the woods heading towards the direction in which the bird apparently flushed and two photographers with huge lenses on tripods set up in and adjacent to the cleared area. This is NOT okay!Luckily the owl came back out to the edge of the woods after several minutes, but what started with two photographers remaining on the "Owl's side of the road" even after being asked politely to back off eventually became a lineup of 8-12 large lensed individuals that ran after the bird every time it flushed! Every large lensed photographer was not guilty of this, however.Before we left, the bird had flown to a fairly short, wooden post right at the intersection of Stud Mill and County Rd and people proceeded to get in their cars or start jogging to the bird, eventually surrounding the owl from both roads on either side of it while photographers got as close as they could. From a distance, it was obvious that this bird was surrounded practically 360 degrees with maybe 30-50 feet around it. Cornering the bird like this more than significantly reduces it's ability to hunt and quite frankly confuses the heck out of it! This should be obvious.Please remember that there is no excuse for putting added pressure on this bird; not if you are a professional photographer, semipro, amateur, or anything else. Most importantly for the bird's sake, but also because there are other birders and photographers (pro, semi, and amateur) present and/or on their way that are currently or are planning to keep a safe distance. Sometimes the best photos come from hanging back and being patient! Don't ruin it for everyone else!I am hopeful that many other bird lovers out there can go see this owl for much of the remaining winter and enjoy it while at the same time, giving it the space that it deserves so that it can hunt in peace and continue to survive.Sorry for the long post and please don't continue this thread unless absolutely necessary (feel free to reply to me offline if you would like)!Bird haahd, but not so haahd that you scare off all the birds!Noah Gibb-Freeport
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