American Goldfinch in Britain! ;-) (1 Viewer)

[Jynx]

In the Daily Mirror today in the piece about the RSPB Garden Survey the picture in the middle of the article is a Goldfinch, but an American Goldfinch. Anyone with that in their garden would find it surrounded by 2000 twitchers as it would be a first for Britain.
Last year our local paper went with the headline "Britain's Rarest Raptor spotted in Gloucestershire", when an Osprey flew over!
It frustrates me no end that the media generally never do their research properly on wildlife stories.
Any other examples or am I alone in this frustration.

 

[Merlin]

Jynx

Some time ago the Bristol Evening Post had a two page spread about local birds, three of the photographs were wrong including a shelduck with a picture of a ruddy shelduck.
I e mailed and pointed out the errors but had no response.
I have noticed many similar errors in national papers which gives lttle creedence to any other information that they print on any other subject.
regards
Merlin

 

[Jon Turner]

In the Daily Mirror today in the piece about the RSPB Garden Survey the picture in the middle of the article is a Goldfinch, but an American Goldfinch. Anyone with that in their garden would find it surrounded by 2000 twitchers as it would be a first for Britain.
Last year our local paper went with the headline "Britain's Rarest Raptor spotted in Gloucestershire", when an Osprey flew over!
It frustrates me no end that the media generally never do their research properly on wildlife stories.
Any other examples or am I alone in this frustration.

Yes, there was the leucistic/partial albino Chaffinch being passsed off as a Snow Bunting earlier this year by many of the Nationals....

Pathetic, innit.

I also had a small brochure from a wildlife agency showing a group of Gulls in the UK and there in the middle was a full adult Pallas's Gull... I wish.

Jon

 

[Jynx]

I have emailed the reporter but I'm not expecting any response.

 

[jwreeves]

In a local magazine earlier in the year there was a photo of a black-capped chickadee, also with an piece about the RSPB garden survey, and last week in the daily mails tv/radio guide there was a picture of long-billed curlew next to an advertisment for a radio show about the birds of the somerset levels! Think the publishers prefer the American counterparts than our own species!

 

[bitterntwisted]

I have emailed the reporter but I'm not expecting any response.

As I vaguely understand the newspaper production process, the reporter will have no input to the images used. I believe it's the sub-editor who makes that call, possibly supported by a pictures editor where staffing allows.

Graham

 

[John B (not the sloop)]

In the Daily Mirror today in the piece about the RSPB Garden Survey the picture in the middle of the article is a Goldfinch, but an American Goldfinch. Anyone with that in their garden would find it surrounded by 2000 twitchers as it would be a first for Britain.
Last year our local paper went with the headline "Britain's Rarest Raptor spotted in Gloucestershire", when an Osprey flew over!
It frustrates me no end that the media generally never do their research properly on wildlife stories.
Any other examples or am I alone in this frustration.

It's bad enough when the media insists on labelling all birders as "twitchers". I'm not a b***dy twitcher and never have been! I know the local paper you mean(!)

 

[s. james]

Someone saw 10 waxwings here and got in the paper which said this was 10% of the British population. Don't know where they got that figure from!

 

[Farnboro John]

It's bad enough when the media insists on labelling all birders as "twitchers". I'm not a b***dy twitcher and never have been! I know the local paper you mean(!)

I know just what you mean! As a twitcher of long standing I find it appalling to have my elite status degraded by inclusion of dudes, raspberries and robin strokers!

John

 

[Jynx]

I got a reply from the Mirror:

Hello Mike,

Thank you for pointing this out to me. At the risk of sounding like I'm shifting the blame (which is exactly what I'm doing!), I'm just a lowly writer. The picture research is carried out by someone else who must have had their eye off the ball...

However, I have passed your email on to the powers that be and we will be printing a correction in our For The Record section on the letters page very soon.

I will also keep your details if that's ok and drop you a line if I need help on any future birdie articles.

Thanks again and happy twitching!

Beth


So there you go! Useless picture guy as someone said above.

 

[John B (not the sloop)]

I got a reply from the Mirror:

Hello Mike,

Thank you for pointing this out to me. At the risk of sounding like I'm shifting the blame (which is exactly what I'm doing!), I'm just a lowly writer. The picture research is carried out by someone else who must have had their eye off the ball...

However, I have passed your email on to the powers that be and we will be printing a correction in our For The Record section on the letters page very soon.

I will also keep your details if that's ok and drop you a line if I need help on any future birdie articles.

Thanks again and happy twitching!

Beth


So there you go! Useless picture guy as someone said above.

See....? There they go again with the twitching thing.... Am I right, or am I right?

 

[Jynx]

See....? There they go again with the twitching thing.... Am I right, or am I right?

Ah John! It takes one to know one

 

[Jimthetall]

My fantastic council (scarborough) have several displays, including a trailer, with lots of gulls on it. I've looked long and hard around here, but still haven't found their flock of Ring-billed Gulls.

Jim

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

The Guardian has an entertaining habit of illustrating any article about Puffins in the UK with pictures of Horned or Tufted Puffins. I rather like my own University's 'Campus Biodiversity' page. Oystercatchers are certainly quite commonplace here, although I'm still looking for the American Oystercatcher that they use on this page:
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/estates/environment/biodiversity/campus_biodiversity.php
On a deeply pedantic note, I once attended a talk by somebody from SNH about Forvie Nature Reserve and the Ythan Estuary. The talk included a picture of a King Eider amongst a flock of Common Eiders to illustrate that sometimes one might stumble across a Kingy in amongst the numerous Eiders on the estuary. I smugly noted that all of the Common Eiders in the picture were of the Arctic subspecies borealis, suggesting that it was taken nowhere near the Ythan!

 

[Jacana]

I remember seeing an article about bitterns in a broadsheet papaer (can't remember which) which had a lovely image of a sun bittern accompanying it.

 

[bitterntwisted]

This image adorns a wall in the visitor centre of the communications tower in Pecs, Hungary, mapping the extraordinary panorama from the top.

What is most extraordinary is the species of bird gliding high above the landscape of wooded hills in a landlocked country.

Graham

 

[Vectis Birder]

It's bad enough when the media insists on labelling all birders as "twitchers". I'm not a b***dy twitcher and never have been! I know the local paper you mean(!)

Yeah, same here. I don't twitch, only locally if something good's around, and I hate being called a twitcher. I always put people right and point out the differences between normal everyday birding and twitching - gotta educate the masses!

Back on topic, I have a feeling that newspaper editors hate admitting they're wrong, hence the lack of replies.

 

[lmans66]

Well it is comforting to realize that the "paper" on the other side of the pond is just as unreliable as the paper on this side of the pond.... Somethings never change

 

[chowchilla]

This image adorns a wall in the visitor centre of the communications tower in Pecs, Hungary, mapping the extraordinary panorama from the top.

What is most extraordinary is the species of bird gliding high above the landscape of wooded hills in a landlocked country.

Graham

Lol, that would be some tick for Hungary!:-O

 

[Microtus]

A year or two after Tropical Storm Bertha deposited a few Black-capped Petrels and the like around the mouth of Delaware Bay, a local company brought out a new edition of its Cape May County, New Jersey map (Cape May County borders the mouth of Delaware Bay). On the front of the map was a good rendition of a Black-capped Petrel flying over the water behind the person lying on a beach chair!

I've always figured the inaccuracies in nature and science reporting in newspapers is due to the staff members not being sufficiently exposed to science classes in college, rather than a reflection of the across-the board level of accuracy of the newspaper's contents. Perhaps I am being too optomistic?

And I love the albatross flying over Hungary.