[Birdtalk] A tale of two hawks

[Connie McManus]

Tim,
thanks for your comments on this RSHA vs RTHA debate and being honest.  I
have learned a lot from this debate.  It has made me look more carefully at
the bird guides -- printed and online -- and making the effort to be more
careful in my observations.  Being a newbie to birding, I did scrutinize the
bird with the bird guides (Sibley's and utahbirds.org) and could have sworn
I saw an RSHA.  So, I'm just shrugging my shoulders and am still wondering
if we're not talking about two different birds.  But, I deferr to you
experts!

Everyone...
The observation that Tim made about how we hear about a bird, rush out to
look for it and, lo and behold, we see it, is an interesting phenomenon.
Bias.  Scientists go to great lengths to overcome it, and yet it still
plagues them ... and the rest of us.   I've noticed another  phenom in
myself-- and I assume others have done the same thing --  and that is,  I
don't always see the  birds for what they really are.  I intensely
scrutinize the bird and compare it with field guides numerous times (which
takes me a considerable amount of time, even days or weeks) and for the
longest time I just can't see in the living bird what the guide book is
showing.  Then it hits, like bringing the object of a hidden eye picture
into focus.  It's all about being objective in what we see. Sometimes we
scrutinize too closely and miss the ID patterns and other times we just
blindly assume something and don't scrutinize close enough. I'm sure if
there are any psychologists amongst us, they may have terms for these
phenomena.   What a tricky balance we must find between the two to make good
observations!  I suppose that's part of life -- learning and growing through
our errors.

Thanks to everyone for sharing your expertise.  I am learning so much!!

Connie McManus
Cache Valley



On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 9:25 AM, Tim Avery <tanager at timaverybirding.com>
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
> Salt Lake City, Utah
> tanager at timaverybirding.com
> http://www.timaverybirding.com
>
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