to a Red-eyed Vireo:
to a Philadelphia Vireo:
And I could buy this ID, since the field marks made sense to me:
No wing bars. Has eye stripe & eyebrow line, both fairly distinct & dark lores. Inconsistent with Warbling Vireo. Crown - lacks a distinct line between eye brow & crown, and lacks contrast with back. Brownish rather than gray. Inconsistent with both Red-eyed and Warbling. Breast - appears uniformly yellowish - inconsistent with both Red-eyed & Warbling.So, I'm pretty excited to enter this bird into ebird. (Shhhhh, don't tell anyone, but I really liked this turn of events, since a Philadelphia Vireo gives me a life bird. Very cool!) When this comes up as a "rare bird" in ebird, I pause for only a moment. ebird contains quite a bit of intelligence, and when you enter data, it only presents you with birds that would be expected to be seen in that location and time of year. You can add other birds, but they get flagged, and you're required to provide an explanation as to why and how you've IDed the bird.
I run this ID - and the "rare bird" thing in ebird - past a good friend and birding mentor who works at banding stations, my biggest concern being that Colorado is far out of the normal range for a Philadelphia Warbler. He tells me that it's not at all unusual to see Philadelphia Vireos migrating through in the fall. They see them each year at the banding stations during migration. So I feel confident as I enter this bird into ebird, along with my explanation and description of the process I went through to identify this bird.
When I hit "enter" on the list, I know that it will generate an ebird moderator challenge, and I'm ready for it. I kind of think, "Bring it!" When I was a fledgling birder (maybe I should say "very fledgling birder"), I entered rare birds pretty much willy-nilly into ebird. Then I'd get the follow-up emails from ebird moderators - folks who are acknowledged experts in the field - asking for verification. These folks help keep the ebird database clean, which advances the scientific value of entering our sightings into the website. In those very early days, I would dutifully send off my photos, saying, "here's my defense!", and I'd ultimately get a message back from some kind and patient person saying "that's not a SuperDuper Hawk, it's a juvenile PlainJane Hawk", or "that's not an Intergalactic Gull, it's a young Earthling Gull", or somesuch, and each email would provide a description of details I had missed. It has been a grand and educational experience, and one of the things it has taught me is to pay attention to details that aren't all about field marks, but rather, about time of year and migration patterns and regionality and oh so many other things. It has made me pause before submitting a "rare bird", and to re-examine my photos, and to send them off to people who know far more about birds than I do, and to essentially question everything. It has taught me to be careful about the data I enter into ebird. In the not-quite-two-years since I started down this birding odyssey, I've gone from dreading the challenge to embracing it: forewarned, I'm forearmed!
So when I enter my Philadelpia Vireo into ebird, I think, Yeah!! Here's my Philadelphia Vireo! And my super explanation! Challenge that!
And of course, ebird challenges that. The challenge comes within a day or so of submitting the list. This time it's from an ebird reviewer I haven't had a challenge from yet, but whose name is very familiar. The guy is one of the state's top birders, and I've been hoping to meet him, so this seems like a great time to impress him.
Dutifully, I enumerate the field marks, and the reasons why I (ahem, "we" since this has been a group effort) have ruled out the ousted candidates, and how we arrived at this identification. And of course, I attach a bunch of photos, just to make my case.
The next morning, I'm heading out to (guess what!) go birding with an AMB classmate and mentor, and I'm waiting for my Grande Latte at the Starbucks drive-thru window. While I'm waiting, I decide to see if I've gotten any late-night or early morning emails worth reading. And there it is, a response already at 7 a.m. from the ebird reviewer.
Cool! Can't wait to read it! I look up; no coffee for me yet, so I open the email.
It begins, "Hello Judith. Alas, this appears to be a Warbling Vireo."
I can't read any further, because I'm laughing. I laugh, and I laugh and I laugh some more. In fact, I laugh until I have tears streaming down my face. My rib (the one I broke a week ago or so; did I mention that?) hurts because I'm laughing so hard. I move forward in the Starbucks drive-thru line, and I know the guy who gives me my latte thinks I'm nuts because I'm still laughing.
But that's okay. It turns out that even with several of the best birding brains in the state, nobody really agrees on an identity for this bird. In the end, my little bird has apparently decided against being labeled. And bully for him. He's gorgeous and he was curious and he posed for photos. Who needs a name when you have all that?
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| Vireo sp. Crow Valley Campground, CO 9/7/13 |
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