Mary Tyler Moore and Lincoln Karim aside, I think you will find that the birdwatching crowd is very much a wealthy far right kind of crowd, not treehuggers...birdwatchers! Different people!
My wife knows MTM very well, she's the real deal...she once threw out a nurse my wife sent over because she was wearing a fur hat. She's definitely on the very far left treehugging side! But I would worry MORE about all the Thurston Somebody the Fourths that really don't want their observation of the Left-Handed Nuthatch disturbed.

I spoke to one of the Hawk Watchers today at the pond...it was not Lincoln Karim, and I talked to him a bit about model fields and such. This guy did not seem to have a big issue with it, he thought the majority of bird watching activity was at The Ramble, and not really at any open fields. Just his opinion. He did not react virulently when I broached the idea to him. But he does not represent the Hawk Watching Community, he was just one of the Pale Male people.
Pale Male was out, did not see him in the scope today!