An excerpt:
I was counting dickey birds up the shore from Duluth one fine autumn morning when a birding friend ran up and told me a Yellow-billed Loon had been sighted at Brighton Beach in Duluth, slowly working its way northeast along the shore. She and I jumped in the car and stopped at each pullout along the way, searching for it. At our second stop, we came upon two other birders who were searching for it. We represented four of Duluth's "best" birders, and we all had good spotting scopes. And voila! There was the bird, swimming and diving quite a distance from shore, but we all got good looks and were jumping and celebrating when suddenly it occurred to me that something wasn't quite right. And when I looked again, our Yellow-billed Loon turned out to be an immature Double-crested Cormorant. Everyone was mortified. And the other three were so upset that they begged the group to NEVER tell anyone our mistake!! So I never gave their names out...
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5 comments:
That's the exact story you linked to last week, only she was telling it on a different list. I'm surprised you didn't search out tiny discrepancies between her telling of the story in 2002 compared to 2006. Don't you ever tire of rehashing the same old stuff, over and over? If you truly believe the Ivory-bill is extinct, mightn't you at least occasionally post something about bird species that you believe do exist?
"That's the exact story you linked to last week, only she was telling it on a different list."
1. Actually, I believe I linked to the story where "she" mistook some buffalo dung for a Burrowing Owl.
2. Did you know that some bloggers keep an eye on their IP logs, and can fairly accurately identify some regular visitors? For example, I have reason to believe that the visitor from IP address 68.112.165.# (Duluth, MN) is Laura Erickson.
Coincidentally, that very visitor happened to access my site just as the above comment came in. In a further coincidence, Laura Erickson herself made a late-night posting on her own blog just minutes before the above comment came in.
SMACK-DOWN!
I guess now we know that Tom probably knows who is who in the anonymous posting game (or can at least make a reasonable guess).
Poor old lauranonymous still doesn't get it: we, the skeptics, only believe that the IBWO is extinct because there is no good evidence to the contrary. None.
I don't believe in god either, BTW, but there is a circumstance that could change that, too. And it won't be an emotional "fit".
We don't need examples of other species being mis-identified. The facts are that there are MANY well-documented incidents of erroneous IBWO sightings. Most involve Pileateds, but some even involve such ridiculous boners as DOWNY WOODPECKER or even non-woodpeckers. I'm talking about people who get photos or video of their "IBWO," and who have access to field guides, etc. And, they still submit the record as an IBWO. And many will continue to believe that it was an IBWO even after they are told otherwise. Now, I'm not saying that most experienced birders would do this, but if you are talking about fleeting-glimpse-sight-records and blurry video under mass hysteria conditions, then yes.
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