Connie,

We appreciate what you had to say and agree.

Thanks,

Sue and John Rogers
College Place,WA
mailto:johrog at bmi.net

----- Original Message -----
From: "Constance J. Sidles" <csidles at mail.isomedia.com>
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2002 6:33 AM
Subject: IDs


Hey tweets, I've been reading all the posts about identification woes
and/or triumps with great interest. I myself have been the target of
"corrections" from time to time, both sensitive and attack-dog style. To
me, the difference lies in whether a corrections guru questions the bird or
the person doing the birding. I don't mind defending my identifications by
listing the field marks that I observed. I do mind defending my own
observational skills, my intelligence, my honesty, etc.

So in which category do my birding skills fall - observation or integrity?
With some critics, there doesn't seem to be a boundary. That's because
sometimes we rely on the known quality of a birder to assess how likely an
unusual identification is. So if Mr. Big Name sees a rarity, we're more
likely to go rushing off to see it too, whereas if Ms. Clueless reports
something, we dismiss it and her. (Of course, this is not true in ABA
reports, which assume that everybody is fairly clueless without a camera).

I myself have been guilty of dismissing beginners, though not, I hope with
intent to hurt anyone's pride or feelings. But I have learned through
bitter experience to take all reports with a grain of salt. Two incidents
come to mind.

Once I was birding the Fill with a true master birder, a guy who has
devoted his life to birds and whose skills so far surpass mine that I
always feel like an apprentice at the feet of the master whenever I'm with
him. No matter how much my skills have improved over the years, I still
feel like Phaedro listening to Socrates ("No Phaedro, your reasoning has
once again sat you on the stile next to the village idiot"). So you can
imagine my feelings when this expert saw a quick-flying creature go
whizzing past our heads, and he called out, "There goes a rufous
hummingbird." It was a dragonfly, much to his lasting embarrassment. He
didn't say a single word for the rest of our walk. I wasn't glad that
Nature had humbled him while I had the privilege of witnessing his
downfall (well, okay, maybe a little glad). But really, I was just
gratified that even an expert of his caliber could make a mistake. It made
me feel like maybe my own mistakes weren't so bumbling.

But the shoe has been on the other foot too, like the time my husband and I
were approached by a pair of foreign birders at the Fill. They could hardly
speak English, and in their excitement over finding a really unusual bird
on the main pond, what little English they commanded was fast departing. We
asked them to give us the field marks, and they just couldn't find the
words. Then one of them spotted the Peterson's I was carrying. "It looks
like that," he said, pointing to the avocet. "Oh what a nice spot," we said
in what was probably a disgustingly patronizing manner. Then we patted them
on the shoulder and went on our way back to the car, shaking our heads at
the kinds of rarities that beginners could conjure out of thin air. Only
that evening did we learn how many other birders had seen the avocet at the
Fill. We never did. Oy.- Connie, Seattle

csidles at mail.isomedia.com