New rules on Submissions for Birdguides

Since my post Blazing it has come to my notice thatnew rules on photo submissions. In case anyone thinks I have thrown my toys out of the pram by leaving Bgs, I'd just like to set the record straight, I left prior to these new rules, some seven days prior in fact and had no knowledge that they were about to be introduced.
Birdguide have now banned all photo uploads of schedule one birds, plus three additions from March through June. This apparently is to be an automated blanket ban, with a few exceptions....once you have an exception you have an anomaly, so we will have to see how that goes.
Had these rules been in operation in the first place I wouldn't even have tried to upload, I would have accepted the rule. But in the absence of such a rule I couldn't understand being rejected while others were not. I won't go into all the details of our exchanges, but two things rankled, one, the inconsistency and two, the assertion that I was encouraging nest photography, and that after a full explanation of how the images were achieved.
The announcement on BGs has produced a lot of strong comment, with some forceful points being made. What has struck me from these comments is the disunity from the different faction of the birding community. As I see it we have as follows:-
Birdwatchers
Twitchers (Believe it or not until the BBC documentary I didn't know what they were)
Ringers
Bird Photographers of which I am one......and after some venomous remarks on BGs just below us are Egg Thieves, or maybe it's the other way round, until now I never new we were so disliked in some quarters.
I'm a big fan of musicals, Oklahoma springs to mind.... Territory Folks...The Farmer and the Cowboy should be Friends etc.etc. On Birdguides I have made lots of friends, it is billed as a friendly community, but as this event has show.....just scratch the surface and.....
I have in the main enjoyed my years posting on Birdguides, it has if you like been my camera club with some top photographers producing stunning images that have inspired me. It has been a pleasure endeavoring to be up there with the best, it has without doubt improved my skills no end.
Will I go back? No I won't, and not because of "The Ban", they have every right to introduce whatever rule they like, they are first and foremost a business who make their money out guiding folk to birds, photographs are secondary, they have given the likes of me a place to air my wares completely free of charge and in return they have accumulated a massive photo library, free of charge.
No I'm leaving not because of the ban, I left before it was introduced and now its time to move on and I wish Birdguides every success in the future.

The swallow signals a new Spring


Fortitude