Being approached by officers of the law, other persons of authority (rangers, military, guards come to mind) or just members of the general public is indeed commonplace when out observing. Latest such encounters were in Turkey a couple of weeks ago where we were accosted by police officers (politely asked to leave, no reason given, can’t think of any good ones, but then again, lack of a common language provided a challenge to communication), guard (I think) (same evening, different spot, politely asked to leave, seems we had inadvertently wandered into an area that was closed to the public at night (we had seen the sign, hadn’t bothered to get it translated, thought it was just the road that was closed to traffic)), and rangers (four days after, pics and Google translate resolved the situation, they moved on, asked us to enjoy the evening, and we continued about our business).
Sometimes I am met with friendly curiosity, other times with suspicion, but either way, people tend to be civil and polite. In particular, in respect to persons in an official position of authority I have never known this not to be the case. The above encounters were quite typical. Being asked to move on for no obvious good reason as in the case with the police above is annoying, of course,
but it doesn’t happen often and I have never found the need to push the issue. Simply complying makes life easier, not least when faced with linguistic obstacles.
Most of these encounters actually end up positive or at worst just neutral experiences. Every now and then they will even end up producing a tip or two with information for further searches, often useless, yet in the best of cases useful (this can usually rather easily be gauged with a reasonably degree of confidence). One particularly fortunate such case happened one afternoon in a desert valley in south eastern Morocco. Keeping an eye out for whatever might be active while scoping the surroundings for good habitat for our upcoming night time search for Roman’s saw-scaled viper, Echis leucogaster, we were approached by the farmer living in the house at the dead end of the dirt road where we were about to turn around. Thankfully, my friend’s French was better than mine. Turned out this guy was the first to have found this locally rare species in Morocco and he invited us back to search his garden in the evening. The following afternoon, btw, being approached by another farmer in another valley closer to the coast, resulted in us being invited in for a cup of tea. Friendly people :-)
I guess not carrying around a large camera, binoculars or similar means I am spared some of these encounters, yet subject to others I might not have been had presence of same gear made my behavior less puzzling, e.g. in the case where the poor lady expressed concern as I was walking around by the railroad tracks, clearly fearing I was suicidal.
The most uncomfortable (though in retrospect mostly amusing) such encounter that jumps to mind was one late evening in a somewhat remote area in northern Spain. Seemingly all of the villagers’ multitude of dogs caged in their streamside backyards took offense at our walking a public path on the opposite bank searching for salamanders and their loud barking brought just about everyone out into the street. Less than pleased with our presence, explaining ourselves in rudimentary Spanish and through photographs did little to calm the angry mob, but at least eventually they seemed satisfied we were just harmless idiots and let us on our way without any real harm done.
