Be a Considerate Birder

In 2017, HCAS developed a policy for playback, with the intention that the policy would be adhered to on any HCAS sponsored walk.  So although  it’s not the chapter’s role to dictate ethics to individual birders, I do firmly believe it is our responsibility to provide leadership, guidance, and an example on this subject.   Our policy states that during breeding season, playback should never be used.  For those new to birding, during breeding season, playback not only confuses birds, but can cause them to spend valuable time and energy defending their territory when they might be raising their young, thus creating less successful nesting attempts.  For us, it means that birds that might have established territory in a certain location, will move somewhere else, where they think no other male has claimed the territory.  We then lose a wonderful opportunity to see them.

Please help out birding in the High Country, and avoid using playback during the breeding season.  I would like to think that our chapter represents the best ethics in birding.  Thank you.

Debbie Shetterly
Past HCAS President

Links to Information on Ethical Birding:
High Country Audubon Society Ethical Use of Playback
ABA Code of Birding Ethics (https://www.aba.org/aba-code-of-birding-ethics/)