I used to consider myself a pretty good ear birder, until tinnitus set
in. But I have also just become much more cautious about identifying
birds by song or call alone - especially call. My own experience is
that the more I chase down birds giving "diagnostic" calls, and even
songs, the more often I find I am wrong. Purple Finches make calls like
Hutton's Vireos and Cassin's Vireos and Western Tanagers, never mind
other finches. And never mind the mimics. Some of it is being rusty,
some of it is damaged hearing, but I am certain that some of it is
overconfidence, too.

While acknowledging my own declining abilities, it has really hit home
to me that it is entirely possible that a lot of birds are
misidentified by confident (and competent) birders simply because I
don't think it is possible for any birder to be completely familiar
with every call made by every bird, and especially to be able to cite
which calls could be coming from two or three different species, i.e.
they are not diagnostic of one. A lot of this is borne of the early
bird sound recordings, which were used as gospel, when in fact they
were only snippets of gospel. I will also add that there are some
phenomenally good ear birders out there.

My intent is not to doubt the abilities of all the experienced birders
out there - I am envious that they can hear better than I can. But I
would be interested to see some research done (casual or serious) into
how many times initial IDs by sound are in the end wrong when confirmed
visually.

For the record, my own personal "field mark" for the song of the Purple
Finch, at least where I live, is that it has a rolling quality unlike
House Finch, and it always seems as if it is hurrying to get the song
out; House Finch is lazier and more random.

Yours with ears a-ringing, and increasing numbers of unconfirmed
observations
Bruce Whittington
Ladysmith, BC
mailto: fieldnat at pacificcoast.net