Sherrie Hockett:

>And Don, do you really think this one Longspur can be compared to
>monitoring Spotted Owl populations and preservation of old growth? If
>chestnut-collared longspurs are endangered, I apologize.

Whoa! There've been about three threads running under this heading:

1. A somewhat tongue-in-cheek discussion of shooting/catching/sexing this
bird (with some semi-seriousness perhaps on the part of some), ranging
from shooting it with a shotgun to shooting it with Canons to
catching it with a butterfly net.

2. A discussion of our lack of knowledge of this species, and some
musings about the value of capturing specimens in order to fix
it, which really haven't been about this particular bird, except
to point out that it would tell us nothing and that systematic
work elsewhere seemed to be needed.

3. And a brief discussion of anti-science sentiments on the part
of some birders, particularly the UK, which has drifted far afield
of any talk about this species, much less the individual.

Better use of "smileys" would help differentiate between #1 and
#2, and these two have been intertwined as well.

You were responding to #1, perhaps not realizing that at least some
of the comments weren't meant to be taken entirely seriously.

I think Dennis thought you were responding to #2, in other words
the legitimate capture/release or collection of critters to
further science.

Stuart brought up #3, and that's the context of my response. Nothing
to do with this bird or species in particular, just a reaction against
the fact that some animal lovers oppose capturing and marking critters.
I run across this in the raptor world. In the Goshutes where we band
it seems that nearly every year we'll get a cook or observer or
bander from the rehab community that we've snatched because of their
experience handling birds who challenges the usefulness of banding.
So I'm well aware that there's opposition. When I push, I learn
that some, especially those with a rehab background (no flames - not
all rehabbers, of course) often read AR literature and have run
into arguments against science, in essence.

>I was agreeing with Stuart (I thought) that it would be irresponsible to
>capture this bird. There is little risk involved with capture, but some
>risk does exist. Does it outweigh the benefit in this case?

No. Even if we could then sex it we don't have any context
for this bird - where'd it come from, etc etc, nor would inspecting
it in the hand allow one to derive the context, judging from
the information posted thus far.

>But data is meaningful when it is
>applied to a meaningful question. If this bird were involved in a banding
>study, then we could catch it, record all its measurements and have gained
>knowledge from that. But this isn't a study. It's supposed to be for
>fun, right?

Well, again, some of this discussion was just "for fun", too...

- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>