Thankyou Tom and Anna for your suggestions on the mystery raptor. After I
posted my message I realized that I had not actually mentioned the bird I
had thought (hoped?) it might be. I admittedly had a very poor view of the
bird, and my mind was certainly elsewhere at the time but I was leaning
toward Swainson's hawk. If I was familiar with the calls of some of these
raptors, I might have been able to clinch its identity.

This whole episode has however brought to the forefront an issue I have with
birding. I did go out on a limb trying to identify something with
insufficient tools, little time and with limited observation. I find it
interesting how I might "jump" to the conclusion that it might be something
unusual rather than the greater likelihood that it was a common local
species but I really had a poor look at it and did not recognize its call
(for whatever reason). What I should have done in this case was to
systematically rule out all of the expected and common species first
(although this seems to be a rational after-the-fact process when the mind
at the time of observation is actually "jumping" from one notion to another
as the neurons fire in the brain).

What I am trying to say here is that birders I have known whether
inexperienced or not often jump to conclusions, at least momentarily during
observations but the difference lies in that the experienced observer has
greater depth of knowledge from which to rely on in "interpreting" the
observation. Far too often I have witnessed somewhat brutal attacks on
inexperienced birders who follow a similar path as I have just done but in
actuality, don't we all do this?

I guess the conclusion from my episode is that considering both likelihood
and my own description of what I saw, the bird was probably a Cooper's Hawk
and the suggestion I might have made toward Swainson's Hawk is not
defensible. But one question does remain, why do I (we?) often make such
leaps in logic only to correct them after the fact? Is it due to
expectations? Is it due to a need to find rarirites? Most often, I have
felt that the answer was yes to both of these questions, however in my
particular situation, my mind was literally elsewhere which would have
removed any prior expectations or need to find a rarity.


Cheers,

Don Cecile
dcecile at cln.etc.bc.ca
Cheers,

Don Cecile
dcecile at UVic.CA or dcecile at cln.etc.bc.ca