Subject: Re: interesting Sharp Shinned "NOT"
Date: Mar 5 10:06:26 1997
From: Don Baccus - donb at rational.com


>I wrote a post about a small Sharp Shinned hawk the other day and yesterday
>read some discussion by Don Baccus. He mentioned the way Merlins sit and
>preen after being banded. This piqued my memory so I got out the home video
>of the "small Sharp Shinned" and examined it last night.

Was it preening? Seriously, the way you phrase the above makes it sound
as though my mentioning this behavior caused you to drag out the video.

> I now think it was
>a Merlin. As to the misidentification...Who expects to find a Merlin to be
>hopping around your front porch?

Or a sharpie, for that matter!

As far as being an "idiot" regarding ID, a couple years ago a reasonably
experienced volunteer up at the Goshutes - not one of our more skilled
folks, I'll admit - misidentified as merlin as a sharpie as he was
taking it out of a mistnet! How much closer a look do you need, than
in the hand?

So, don't feel bad.

I feel compelled to add non-birding tidbits to every post today, so will
point out that in the not-too-far future you'd be able to cheaply and
easily upload that video to your personal web page and ask us to
help you ID it. How's that for cool?

It's possible today, just not particularly cheap and easy. The capability
to do so will be as commonly owned by individuals before long as the
ownership of camcorders is today.

- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, at (NEW) http://donb.photo.net