[Tweeters] Bad Birder Billboard

[Kevin Lucas]

Using Washington State Highway 12 westbound 40th Avenue exit ramp in Yakima
to bird is not legal, is not safe, is contagious, and makes you a Bad
Birder Billboard for all of the already annoyed drivers who've just been
anxiously jockeying for exit ramp pole position as they approach you. Less
than six hundred feet away, Highway 12 shoulder is posted "EMERGENCY
PARKING ONLY" for the safety of ALL motor vehicle operators and passengers.
Those who would like to view the birds or "get" a tic on their list at the
beaver pond there, can access that pond via well worn trails from the 16th
Avenue Greenway Path parking lot. That walk is about one and one-third
miles.

When I hiked in the other day, two motor vehicle operators used the 40th
Avenue exit shoulder to "get" a duck on their checklist. The first that
stopped agitated the birds. The next flushed the birds, birds I'd been
watching from the cover of vegetation as they'd been peacefully foraging. I
realize it is a common practice for some listers to use the shoulder there
to list birds. It should not be. Please do not endanger and anger other
drivers and their passengers and set such bad examples. Let's get bad
birders off YouTube's dashcam dangerous highlights reel.

On my hike to that pond I was treated to scenes of fifty crows taking baths
and preening and playing in the river edge cobbles, of a gorgeous male
Anna's Hummingbird singing and flashing his gorget, and of waterfowl
peacefully foraging in the pond,..., until the billboards arrived, and
flushed that last scene down the tubes.

Instead of putting forth tainted checklists and lame excuses, put forward
your better foot -- Take A Hike.

Good Birding,
https://www.aba.org/aba-code-of-birding-ethics/
Kevin Lucas
Yakima County, Washington

*Qui tacet consentire videtur*
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