A recent article in the March/April Wildbird titled Top 5 I.D. Mistakes is an interesting short piece drawn from the author’s experiences as a director at Cape May, New Jersey. Don Freiday lists failure to consider size and shape, range possibility, alternatives, color perception, and being too quick to reference the guidebook.
Size. A women once called Freiday and told him she had an injured loon, which she insisted was a “big” bird, in her bath tub – a type of call Jean and I, and we’re sure other members, are all too familiar with. The loon turned out to be a female Hairy Woodpecker! Later in this column we’ll refer back to this mis-call.
Peering through a small opening in the leaves with his scope, an experienced birder once identified a Belted Kingfisher as a Great Blue Heron! Distance through a scope can throw size perspective way off. Cinnamon Teal are small ducks. Look at one in your scope and then un-aided - they really are small.
Range. When Jean and I first began to compile the checklist for the Tehachapis we collected lists from several local birders and the BVS naturalists – yes Dart Industries employed naturalists that were here into the late 80’s. On these lists we found a number of probable mis-I.D.'s. For example, a Least Grebe. A quick check of its range would have shown southeast Texas! Most likely it was Pied-billed Grebe in winter plumage.
On the other hand, what about those birds on the checklist noted as vagrant. In a pond behind the U.C. Crooked Creek Research Station at 9,000 feet in the White Mountains, we once saw a Wilson’s Phalarope! Well, birds fly. Like the Smew recently seen near Sonora, CA. by member Gary File. The Smew is a merganser relative and is a Eurasian bird only rarely seen even in the Aleutians – now seen only three times in California.
Alternatives. Last month we reviewed the rare bird procedures on Christmas Bird Counts. This exercise is also used when submitting a species to the California Records Committee. A good example occurred on the BVS CBC when we compared the Costa’s Hummingbird with the possibility of it being an Anna’s Hummingbird.
All of us birders when in the field, or answering a species inquiry, must think of alternative species. In fact Peterson, Sibley, and the NGS guides assist birders by including specie comparisons. Note the hummingbird tail illustrations in many guides.
What if you were asked by an acquaintance about a bird she saw in her backyard here in the Tehachapis that had a green back? No, no such bird here? Well, how about a Painted Bunting – which the women had really seen?
Perception. The author, Don Freiday, once asked a group of school children what color were the Turkey Vultures overhead. He got three answers, “purple,” “blue,” and “green.” We were once asked about the green woodpecker with a red head. Have you ever seen white patches on a raven’s dorsal wing surface? From time to time shake your head and say, “Wait a minute, what did I see?”
Quick Draw. Back to the loon and woodpecker caper. Immediately opening her field guide, there it was, a bird with a long bill and white speckles on its side, a loon! The first bird on the first page! How lucky can you get? Obviously she had missed numerous field marks, most importantly, size. A close, detailed examination before cracking the book, is a much better course of action.
Freiday goes on to say that when a birder says, “It looked just like the picture,” he responds by saying, “Birds never look just like the picture in the field guide.” Freiday asks that birders study the bird from end to end, noting the setting, behavior, and field marks, “and then, and only then, go to the field guide.”
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