[Birdtalk] A tale of two hawks

[Jeff Bilsky]

I think I'll just live in the mystery and enjoy having seen a great bird.

Jeff Bilsky
SLC


On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 3:18 PM, Dave Hanscom <hanscom at cs.utah.edu> wrote:

> Thanks for your comments, Tim.  And for your detailed descriptions of why
> you decided the bird wasn't what you first thought it was.
>
> For those of us not very experienced at birding, it can be a matter of
> which "expert" to believe/trust.  I'm reminded of the debate over whether
> the bird seen at Farmington Bay last year was a Parasitic or a Pomerine
> Jaeger.  I decided which bird to put on my list based on whose judgement I
> had the most faith in.  I certainly didn't feel that my knowledge was good
> enough to come up with an independent choice.
>
> These debates are really great, and make all of us better birders!
>
> Dave Hanscom
>
> On Tue, 4 Mar 2008, Tim Avery wrote:
>
> > Thanks to everyone who has responded publicly and privately on this
> > bird.
> >
> > I can honestly say that when I saw the bird the first time I simply
> > looked at it, said Red-shouldered and that was that.  I didn't bother to
> > look closely, at the bird, as in the evening light it looked
> > superficially like a RSHA.  Call it being purely lazy.  Or call it
> > sloppy birding, either way I would like to apologize for not taking a
> > closer look at the bird when I first went to see it. I will take a
> > different road than others and would venture that there is no
> > Red-shouldered Hawk hanging out in Farmington, but an odd Red-tailed
> > (one with a pattern very much like a Red-shouldered), that has fooled
> > everyone who went to look for it.
> >
> > The fact that no one caught on earlier brings up a phenomenon that I
> > think a lot of us get caught up in.  A bird is reported, we go to look
> > for it, and see it!  And often we don't take the time to look at the
> > bird, study its field marks closely.  And making it even more difficult
> > is when the report comes from experienced observers.
> >
> > In this case after the initial time seeing it, I saw it three more times
> > and never once took to actually looking at the bird. Truly what I would
> > call a humbling experience, and showing that just because it looks like
> > something, and maybe even acts like something, it can still be something
> > else.  Doesn't matter how many Red-tailed Hawks I have seen, or how few
> > Red-shouldered, not taking the time to work out the ID based off every
> > detail of the bird was jsut lazy on my part! Looks like its back to the
> > books!
> >
> > Good Birding
> >
> > Tim
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