[Birdtalk] A tale of two hawks

Wed Mar 5 10:38:30 MST 2008

I have come to agree with our "experts" as well. A good saying to remember: "When in doubt, try, try again" or you could say "....think....think again." I would rather take this off my life list, and go for another sighting than be stubborn, and call what really could have been, but maybe not. Kevin Doxstater, from down South, also sent a great photo of a juv. RTHA, which looked a lot like what we have been seeing. I too appreciate our experts out there  who help track down, and teach us what REALLY IS. We learn as we go, and someone once said, "...we are wrong more than we are right, and it takes an expert to admit it."  So thanks Tim for your admitting, and helping all of us in the process.

MarJean
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Connie McManus<mailto:connie.mcmanus at gmail.com> 
  To: Tim Avery<mailto:tanager at timaverybirding.com> 
  Cc: birdtalk at utahbirds.org<mailto:birdtalk at utahbirds.org> 
  Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 11:06 PM
  Subject: Re: [Birdtalk] A tale of two hawks

  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<http://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<mailto: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<mailto:tanager at timaverybirding.com>
    http://www.timaverybirding.com<http://www.timaverybirding.com/>

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