Message-ID: red-47-msg951213193722MTP[01.51.00]000000aa-37070

My two cents on this issue.

Catching and killing *this* bird to determine the sex for the purpose
of enlarging the knowlege of CCLO in-the-field sexing clues is not good
science. A study in the home territory of CCLOs would be a far, far
better way (and may already have been done). A sample size of 1 is
too small to determine anything.

However, there are interesting scientific questions that this bird
could help answer - questions regarding vagrants. We know little about
which birds end up far from home and why. Determining the age and sex
of this bird, and of other vagrants, would let us know more about the
evolutionary significance of vagrantism. For example, if it could be
determined that young males were much more likely to be found far from
home, then we might postulate that young males range widely in search
of other populations in order to mix the gene pool. On the other hand,
if breeding adults of both sexes wander, then we could speculate about
whether such wandering plays a role in the changing geographical
distribution of a species.

That said, I do not advocate catching and killing this bird. There are
so few vagrants (by definition) that we probably will never be able to
really study the questions mentioned above.

Banding this bird might be worthwhile, however. By simply banding this
bird, we *might* be able to sex the bird. And banding of vagrants
could help answer the most obvious question related to vagrancy - do
vagrants ever get home again? I realize that recapture of banded birds
is a relative rarity, but banding provides the only chance for finding
out more about this bird in the future.

== Michael Hobbs
== mikeho at microsoft.com
== Redmond, WA