[Birdtalk] Comment on recent rarities

[mjw22 at comcast.net]

Steve makes some very good points with this one.  It truly is amazing how an active bunch of birders (I don't think Steve was going for a comprehensive list...just a recent highlight reel) can shed some good light on what species are actually here rather than what species people actually see.
 
This discussion ties in nicely with the earlier request for an arrivals/departures list for summer residents (or even winter residents).  I spent a couple of years at Cornell birding the Cayuga Lake basin where there is a very active birding community.  Colby did some time there as well...but just after I left.  The birders in "The Basin" have kept dilligent records on when the first spring sighting of some of the "true" and "complete" migrants in the area (something like the list that was suggested for Utah).  I think this goes back 30+ years.  Not surprisingly, in recent years, many birds have been seen earlier than the historical averages.  Answering the question of "why" is a problem of too many variables.  Not only that but different variables are at work with different species.

I knew someone who was doing some research on this and other arrival data.  It became quickly apparent that simply saying "It's global warming." was gross oversimplification.  Today, birders are armed with better knowledge of species and haunts, better ID skills thanks to (Kauffman, Sibley, ABA, etc.), free time, willingness and desire to bird hard, high powered scopes, widely available and better binoculars (and now digital cameras which help immensely for documenting official first records). Couple that with the information contained in forums like these and the fact that there are just more birders than there used to be and one could stage a pretty good argument (as Steve has) that SOME of the observed changes have more to do with the birders than the birds.  

Even back east, the Patagonia Rest Stop (AZ) phenomenon was widely known.  Where birders go, that's where they find the birds...and quite often the very good ones.  When we "chase" the birds that others so graciously find and report (a critical component to any recordkeeping effort), we become part of that and report even more birds. Some of those "secondary" sightings may be new for the area, late for the season or even more rare than the original bird that was the object of the chase.  Think Fish Springs a few months ago.

It's a fascinating topic.  I'm sure some clever researchers are working hard to come up with ways to filter out all those confounding variables to make the data collected by  "citizen scientists" even more valuable and meaningful.   Perhaps they've even have a handle on a few...we do record "birds per party-hour" on the CBC's...but along comes the newer frontiers of radar ornithology, night flight call detection and others I likely omit out of ignorance to add more variables and knowledge to the mix.

Thanks to Steve for bringing this up and to the others who have been birding so hard of late.  It makes for some interesting reports and even encourages those who don't get out as much to do a little chasing.  Who knows what we'll find?

Good Birding,
Matt Williams
Midvale, UT


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Subject: [Birdtalk] Comment on recent rarities
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