[Birdtalk] The Latest ID Challenge

[Kristin Purdy]

I'd like to thank Jack Binch for raising the possibility that the Reddish 
Egret at Fish Springs could have been a Little Blue Heron. When I received 
Jack's message, I ran to the books to nail down the similarities and 
differences between the two species. I wonder how many people did the same. 
Sure wish I had that stuff filed in a photographic memory, but I don't.

When I saw Jack's photo, I understood what Jack saw to lead him to the 
Little Blue Heron conclusion. I felt better informed once I reviewed the 
books; I probably wouldn't have done that before reading Jack's message. 
After all, Utah is not exactly REEG/LBHE territory.

I remember a similar situation two years ago after Steve and Cindy 
Sommerfeld discovered the Parasitic Jaeger west of Willard Bay. They made 
the initial call on the ID; the several of us who joined them that night 
studied the bird hard together, then each took a different position around 
the bird with an assignment to study a particular feature. When dusk fell, 
we convened at a local restaurant, composed extensive notes and validated 
Steve and Cindy's original conclusion.

Shortly after many people saw the bird, Colby and Tim raised the question 
that the jaeger might be a Long-tailed. Our young bird seemed to have 
several non-standard features for a Parasitic and separating the three 
jaeger species is notoriously difficult. How many of us ran to the books to 
compare the jaegers due to the questions that Tim and Colby raised? I think 
we became better on jaeger ID as a community because of the tempest in the 
teapot over the bird's ID.

You know the rest of the story, of course. The jaeger died, Tim collected 
the carcass and positively identified the bird as a Parasitic Jaeger.

We don't need our egret to suffer the same fate to ID it, but the extra 
study that Jack inspired helped me and I hope it helped more people on the 
list, too. Mistaken identifications are a good thing.

Now if someone would just go out there and tell us they think they found a 
juvenile Little Blue Heron, and even though it was pure white it was not a 
Snowy Egret, think of how careful we'd all become in sweeping through a 
group of small white herons!

Kris