[Birdtalk] The Latest ID Challenge

[Pat Jividen]

well


Well Kriss I can telll from Jacks photo why he said maybe a heron but I can 
telll you that while Deloy, Angie and I where there we saw the bid at about 
20 yards. (no one else even Robert saw it that close.)  We had the book out 
and looked at  heron and the egret and we all felt that our ID was correct 
that it was a redish egret.  I am trying to get everyone who took pictures 
to send them to me.  So far I dont have Roberts Sims yet. (he is one of the 
people at fish springs.) Me and Angie have E-mailed since then and we still 
feel were right but from Jacks pictures I can tell why there is so much 
talk.  Pat  Oh yes and some people saw the dance.














>From: "Kristin Purdy" <kristinpurdy at comcast.net>
>To: "Bird Talk" <birdtalk at utahbirds.org>
>Subject: [Birdtalk] The Latest ID Challenge
>Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 21:18:02 -0600
>
>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
>
>
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