Hi Matt and all,
I wrote the following last night (it took 20 minutes, so I hate to just delete it now;o); some may or may have not been rendered moot by the post of Mr. Kothenbeutel:



Of all things birds, one of my favorite things to do is to "over-analyze" and try to guess the probability of "genuine" vs. "not so genuine" vagrants. It's kind of like a game for me.
Some I probably get right, some I'm absolutely sure I get wrong.
In a similar way I think that's why the Ivory-bill work appealed to me so much;
pondering whether it even really existed while at the very same time looking very hard for it.For a bird who's origins I'd been skeptical of in the past, I'd kind of been expecting a summer sighting of the Black Duck somewhere in the vicinity of the park.
Of course this doesn't mean this bird is not a natural stray.
It could be an early fall return or just on some altered schedule as you mentioned.
We probably will never know, but I just don't have a good feeling about this one.
I guess if there were a flurry of hybrids in the same area over the next few years, that might suggest something.
It's just that for me personally, all things considered, at this point I'd just as soon wait til the next candidate before putting Black Duck on my state list.
I saw one at Fir Island in Feb 1986, but figure it was from the now non-listable Everett group.
Thanks,
Keith Brady
Olympia, WA
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