Yesterday morning I ‘found’ Canada’s first Lucy’s Warbler… in my inbox. After reading my recent posts about rare birds, Cathy Mountain (whose redpoll photos were featured here last winter) sent me a series of pictures of a warbler that had been in her yard in Fort McMurray, northern Alberta, from November 8-10, 2008. After rejecting […]
How many rare birds did we miss before the internet? Read More »
My last post “How many rare birds do we miss?“, was simply getting at the idea that we can miss something glaringly obvious if we are not looking for it. A popular psychology quote goes “I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it”. In the case of the moon-walking bear, since I wasn’t
So how many do we find? Read More »
As birders we often talk about the problem of common birds being misidentified as rare ones. The counterpoint, but probably more frequent, is that rare birds are simply overlooked. Here’s a link to a fantastic “Awareness Test” on YouTube. Give it a try, it only takes a minute. The relevance of this test to bird identification should
How many rare birds do we miss? Read More »
One of the enduring mysteries of North American ornithology involves several species which were painted by Audubon in the early 1800s but never seen again. The most striking and appealing of these birds is the Carbonated Swamp-Warbler, and since the painting was published ornithologists have debated whether this could be a rare and now-extinct species,
Audubon’s mysteries: Carbonated Swamp-Warbler Read More »
Maybe we are just more aware and looking harder for “Greater” Common Redpolls (Carduelis flammea rostrata) this winter in Massachusetts, or maybe it’s really an exceptional winter, but there is no doubt that they have come south in significant numbers. I have seen them on a couple of visits to Dan Berard’s feeders in Millbury,
Redpoll investigation widens to include “Greater” Read More »
Redpoll identification is challenging because Hoary and Common Redpoll seem to show an unbroken continuum of variation from pale to dark, and there are no fully reliable differences. So birders have to rely on a subjective assessment of overall color and struggle to define the threshold for confident identification. Virtually all birders see redpolls only
Urging caution when identifying Common Redpolls Read More »
Our perspective and the assumptions and decisions that are triggered by that point-of-view, strongly influence how we perceive the world around us. In short, what we see often depends on how we look at it. This classic drawing looks like a frog sitting on the edge of a pond… but rotate it ninety degrees and
Perspective on a mystery bird Read More »
In late August 1982 I walked into the weedy fields at the South Cape May Meadows in search of rare birds. Among many species that I had in mind as possible “prizes” that day was Loggerhead Shrike and, lo and behold, a scan of the bushes ahead revealed a small, white-breasted, dark-masked bird perched conspicuously
Certainty in sight records Read More »
I’ve thought more about the “square-peg-in-round-hole” analogy in my previous post, and made a few simple drawings to expand that analogy. In many ways, bird identification is like a matching game. The observed bird (here in black) must be identified by matching it to illustrations in a diagnostic key (the gray shapes here). This is
Fitting pegs in holes Read More »
Last week I had the pleasure of spending four days birding at Barrow, Alaska, working on an eider identification project with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. While there I was able to study hundreds of Greater White-fronted Geese that were grazing on the tundra – surprisingly numerous and surprisingly approachable. I’ll write a separate
Ambiguity and bird identification Read More »