Patty and group, I guess I can add a couple of "real life" collecting
stories with airports/police:
 
1) Back in the late 1970s shortly after the first increase in airplane
security my friend and I were going from Houston, Texas to Casper, Wyoming
to do some field work for a major minerals exploration company that I
worked for at the time.  When packing, I almost forgot my Estwing rock
hammer (bright blue handle) and threw it into my briefcase at the last
minute.  Well, when my briefcase went through the x-ray machine we suddenly
got a lot of airport "friends".  It appears that I had a "deadly" weapon in
my posession.  We had to show them our company ID, call the president of
the company and look through everything else we had with us.  I was
guaranteed that I would see it on the other end.  Well, we waited and
waited at the carousel and finally out comes this small cardboard box with
a big blue handle sticking out of it!
 
2) A few of us, still working for the same minerals exploration company
several years later, were doing airborne spectral analysis of forests in
central Tennessee in the fall just about the time of the color change.
Simply, the idea was to fly a plane over an area and detect changes in the
leaf spectral properties due to copper, lead or zinc mineralization under
their roots and we thought the greatest change would be seen in the fall.
So we had the aircraft fly over one week then we went into the field to
collect leaves, humus and soil samples (not knowing the results, but just
where he flew).  Almost everyone stopped and asked what we were doing and
one guy I had to give a lecture on how to improve his tobacco crop with
fertilizer to get onto his land.
 
Anyway, one day I had Doug (one of my technicians) stand by the car while
we went in the field for a few hours.  When we got back Doug was gone but
the local sheriff and a couple of deputies with pointed weapons were
waiting for us.  To make a long story short, there had been a gang-land
style murder in the county 2 weeks before we arrived.  Therefore, people
were told to report and strange looking vehicles parked anyway.  Also, I
will have to admit the Doug had that look to him that made him look like he
could be in some type a mafia gang or something.  So I spent the rest of
the day explaining to the police why we were collecting leaves and soil and
that Doug was a good "guy"!
 
Paul
 
P.S.  Although we did not collect any shells (never been into land
mollusca) did find by chance some fossil shells and brachiopods so I hope
that this counts.
 
At 12:24 PM 5/19/99 +1000, you wrote:
>Dear Andrew (and others),
>
>Your story of being held up by police reminds me of something else. My dad
>is interested in birds and bird sound recordings. He use to go out into the
>bush with a tape recorder and a microphone. To aid the quality of the
>recordings, he had made himself a dish, a bit like a small satellite dish.
>Because it was made out of some plastic, he painted it black, and to stop
>the wind from howling in the microphone, he covered it with some thin cloth
>(also black). He used to get up at the crack of dawn to record bird sounds.
>He would walk around with this 1m diameter dish and a tape recorder and
>headphones. Rather weird!
>
>This was during the seventies, when the reds were still under the bed.
>Combine this with the fact that military reserves and especially shooting
>ranges are great for rare birds, since nobody ever goes there.
>
>So one day he was recording this amazingly rare bird from the other side of
>the fence around a military base. He got home quite late. He was questioned
>by military police, and apparently had to play back the entire tape, and
>dismantle his tape recorder to convince them he wasn't some kind of Russian
>spy!
>
>Still makes a good story at parties!
>
>Patty
>WWW: http://www.capricornica.com
>
>Capricornica Publications               on-line natural history bookshop
>P.O. Box 345
>Lindfield NSW 2070
>
>phone/fax: 02 9415 8098 international: +61 2 9415 8098
>
>E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
>