Dennis:
> If the bird could be captured and could be sexed in the hand (of course in
> the least perilous way possible), it would go a long way to educating a
> whole bunch of people who are curious about this bird in the here and now.

> But if this particular bird were to be sexable (and some people think it
> would be in the hand), then it would satisfy the intellectual curiosity of
> a bunch of people. I personally (and I suspect many of the others who are
> curious) are interested in learning about sexing birds of *this species*,

And this is a reasonable argument for catching and sexing the bird. Thank
you, Dennis, for not claiming that there's intrinsic scientific value
in capturing and sexing this single stray - it's hard to envision a
peer-reviewed article appearing entitled "On the sex of a stray CCLO".

On the other hand, strengthening basic skills is always useful for
professionals of any technical field. And one can argue that any
ornithologist or serious birder or bander (members of the ornithological
infantry, in a sense) might well benefit from learning to sex this bird.

The next one to show up might then be sexable without capture, even if
its plummage is somewhat cryptic as this one seems to be. One never
knows, with climate change bird distributions are bound to change,
and given the complexity of the earth's ecological systems there
will be many surprises in how these changes occur. Perhaps such
strays will become more common.

So...education isn't part of science per se. But the continuing
education of scientists is an important contributing factor to
the success of science in increasing our knowledge base.

> In this case, I wouldn't at all be
> surprised that a majority would vote to "leave the poor little bugger
> alone," and this is of course what we're doing.

In my case, I only vote that we leave the poor little bugger alone
until I get a chance to see it this weekend :) Assuming that our
three recent plagues of ice, drenching rain, and wind haven't
encouraged it to leave for Palm Springs for winter.

A practical problem is that catching the bird might not harm
it, but might cause it to leave. And up pops the social issue
once again - birders wanting to twitch vs. those wanting to
extract as much information as possible from this stray.

And getting back to the educational value, which is higher, introducing
a large number of birders to the bird which will increase their
ability (and perhaps motivation) to identify other CCLO strays, or
increasing the ability of a few to (possibly) sex strays in
difficult plumage?

> And the point that some of us have tried
> to make is that, carried to its extreme, the animal-rights movement will
> surely shut down many kinds of biological research, including just such
> simple things as trying to understand the plumage variations of
> Chestnut-collared Longspurs. Montlake Fill longspur attitudes writ large
> do indeed affect Spotted Owl studies. And I have to respond to this.

And once again - it isn't a matter of "will shut down", it's a matter
of "has shut down" in the UK. As ornithology is an international
endeavor, we can't afford to be provincial in our view of the problem
(though of course we can be provincial in our prioritization). The
harm has been done, the question is how widespread the harm will
become.

Sort of like asking "how far will starlings spread?" in Central
Park in the 1800s...

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