On a BIRDCHAT "bloopers" thread this week, people have been sharing many stories of embarrassing mis-IDs in the field.
These are not stories of Lesser Yellowlegs misidentified as Greater Yellowlegs. How about buffalo dung misidentified as a Burrowing Owl? I think every experienced birder has firsthand experience with mis-IDs like this.
Some examples are here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The pattern is repeated over and over: A wildly incorrect identification is made based on a lousy look. Later, a better view reveals the truth.
In each of CLO's claimed "Ivory-bill" sightings, the ID was made after the "lousy look" stage.
In Arkansas, sightings that reached the "better view" stage always were non-Ivory-bills.
Stunningly, CLO apparently lacked the common sense to conclude that their lousy-view IDs were almost certainly wrong. Instead, they inexplicably concluded that this bird is now so supernaturally wary that it would never allow a better view.
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Heck, I once mis-ID'd a hanging wasp nest as a bald eagle! (Of course, it was in a tree with several other baldies, that were hunkered down against 40 knot winds ... in those conditions, the fluttering paper of the nest looked like feathers!)
I took some photos with an 800mm lens, and when I got home, I was appalled to see the nest!
But I saw what I wanted to in the field, a not uncommon circumstance.
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