Posted by Peter_H on February 25, 2009 at 09:58:19 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Black swans in England? posted by Robert Hill on February 24, 2009 at 22:01:49:
I am with Mike Field on this. Dick's photos would certainly prove that he had photographed a genuine Great Northern, but would not prove where, and it is the locality which matters here. At one point, Jemmerling does show awareness of this point, when he says "the birds themselves, shot in the presence of witnesses". He had realised that a dead bird, plus eggs plus model of the nest, proves nothing, unless you can adduce evidence as to where they were found. Jemmerling goes on to say that "A photograph of the bird on the eggs would settle the point for ever", but he makes it clear that the photo would accompany the model nest, the eggs and the dead birds so as to "leave no loophole". He doesn't mention witnesses again, but I think we can take it that he would make sure there were witnesses. As these would presumably be the crew of the Pterodactyl, the question has to be raised - would they not be regarded as biased, being his employees?
Turning to Dick: If you were the editor of a new bird book, and a boy came into the office with a photo of a Great Northern on its nest, and the boy said "I took it in Scotland", what would you do? Would you believe him? I am not an ornithologist, but I suspect that a fellow ornithologist’s word might be accepted – after all most rare bird sightings rely on a person’s word. Even Jemmerling, it seems, was not prepared to lie. Perhaps this is what AR was relying on, and did not feel that it was necessary to mention it?