It would seem very strange that a member of the group automatically cedes his or her right to protest a breach of one particular code only on account of not fully embracing or strictly following another. Unless two such codes are nearly identical, being called out for hypocrisy for doing so appears to be an unreasonable charge.
A person making such a charge seems to be saying that unless you perfectly abide by all aspects of a code of ethics, you cannot legitimately criticize anyone else for failing to abide by some other aspect of it. This is simply untrue. It's like saying only a morally perfect person can ever make a legitimate moral judgement of another person's behavior. And we know no such person exists.
Just because someone was present when a bird was flushed (and subsequently took great photographs of it), it doesn't diminish the credibility of their criticisms regarding unethical conduct of other birders, or possibly even their own in hindsight. I'm not buying the “intent” argument either, because if you entered the field and inadvertently flushed birds as you walked down a trail, it was your intent to be present where birds were busy doing their thing.
Here's where the "hypocrisy" argument belongs:
