If someone shot an owl, that's tragic.

It's also a tragedy that indignant birders insisting on their rights to see and photograph a bird seem to have helped push someone to such drastic action. I've lost access to several birding spots due to trespassing by 4 prominent local Yakima County listers. While I find that annoying, I feel even worse for the property owners who feel wronged by righteous bird listers. I think the property owners truly feel violated, and the birds get the short end of the stick. Lists and photographs be damned.

Denny Grandstander is blocking my posts to BirdYak -- due to my comments there about local bird listers trespassing. He's understandably concerned. Most of his concern about my posts probably comes from the fact that trespass sightings (on Yakama Nation closed lands and on the private property on the Yakima shore of Priest Rapids Lake) violate the ABA Code of Birding Ethics. If that gets out, any birds he identified while trespassing might get disqualified from his ABA and Washington Birder lists. I don't think he'd like that.

I've got lots of photos here that, artistically or technically, aren't high quality. I put many up that I think are just neato or pretty or funny, so folks can see what birds look like outside of a field guide, from my point of view. Other photos are simply proof of me seeing a bird. I put them here so others who want to see the bird know it really exists, hoping it will encourage them to go see it. I also post them to put my sightings up for review and to prove to those who doubt my sightings that I'm not just one of the county's stringers.