One day this winter I was birding at EPCAL with a friend and watched a man who had parked on the runway (this was the west runway, not the one they actually use) start to unload his gear which included a rather large fan like apparatus (the size of a fan that might be used in a greenhouse) which he strapped to his back. He unpacked a large parasail/parafoil/parachute type of thing in bright rainbow colors. He did a lot of fussing around and we had to do something so we did not wait to see his final flight. When we came back later he was packing up. We spoke to a fellow birder who was just walking out of the radar tower area who said he had been flying around and managed to flush and scare the rough legged hawk that was hanging out there.
About a week later I saw a news story that someone was hurt, in what sounded like a similar type of machine. Just thought I would throw that out there, perhaps the cameras were not up and running yet because I can’t imagine that taking off in a questionable aircraft from a non-airport is legal, but I may be wrong. And they are after a few birders appreciating the world we live in. Yikes. Sally Newbert sall...@optonline.net -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --