Subject: [Tweeters] Re: Birding "photo quiz" flock
Date: Jul 29 09:54:00 2007
From: Mike Patterson - celata at pacifier.com


The editors of _Birding_ started floating this photo via the internet
about a month ago, soliciting educated guesses for their little game.
I didn't get my copy of _Birding_ until after deadline as well, so I'm
guessing the editors tried to anticipate this by putting the picture
out to places like ID-Frontiers well ahead of the publication date.

And it's pretty clear that they were trolling. The limited details
provided in the photos are deliberately meant to steer us toward
considering Ivory-billed Woodpecker (which these birds are pretty
clearly NOT). Photo quizes can be instructive or they can be cynical
smug "gotcha" parlor games. I'm not sure which this is yet, but it's
hard to imagine how much instructive value there is in a very bad,
out-of-focus, from too far away photo of three birds in swamp will get us.

I don't believe these birds are identifiable from this single photo,
though Green Heron and godwit are reasonable guesses. I would think that
wing shape and head to tail proportions exclude most woodpecker species.
We cannot be certain of the size (though they seem large), we cannot
be certain how much of what we see is an artifact of "digital fringe"
distortion and what is bill shape, legs beyond the tail, etc though
they seen to have longish pointed bills and, perhaps, feet extending
beyond the tail. Any reasonable photographer would consign this photo
to the dust bin and any reasonable records committee member would laugh
derisively and move on to the next record. I assume that what makes this
photo special is that it was shot by automated camera. Perhaps the
mere fact the camera caught something is the point of this exercise....

The authors of these quizes are almost invariably working from information
we don't have and that puts them in a delicate position. I don't know
what the motives are behind this quiz photo. It feels like a set up.
It may be that the editors are unequivocally pure of heart and I've just
gotten too old, too cynical and too paranoid, but I chose not to play.


--
Mike Patterson
Astoria, OR
celata at pacifier.com

Malheur NWR Photo Essay
http://www.surfbirds.com/blogs/mbalame/archives/2007/05/malheur200705.html