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To me the most annoying "nonsense" from the CLO is their statement that "sight records are always difficult to assess". This is incredibly disrespectful towards modern field ornithology, which has in fact developed very clear criteria for documenting and evaluating records. The CLO and Auburn sightings are not difficult to evaluate as they obviously fail to meet any number of requirements for a credible sighting. A few of the problems include:
- none of the observers has seen the species before although several claim to have unique insight into the species and its habits
- all observers have obvious financial, social, and other incentives to see the species in question.
- overemphasis of a single field mark already discredited in Science
- failure to see essential field marks including those for which the bird in question is named
- brevity of sighting
- failure to replicate sighting
- single observer
- obvious source of confusion with species that can look or sound very similar
- no pattern of recent records from locality of sighting if you exclude sightings by yurt-dwellers following the advice of their phone psychics
- failure to use binoculars in several cases
- failure to document optics in several cases
- relative inexperience of certain observers
- emphasis on notoriously subjective or otherwise unreliable criteria such as size
- failure to reference relevant and widely-available, recently- published ID information. The Auburn field notes do not address the Sibley theory of wing twisting
- mismatch between reported or claimed behavior and that reported in the literature and known for similar related species
- mention of contraindicative field marks
- admission of crying and other emotional instability
- sketches that don't even appear to be birds or that depict angles that could not possibly have been seen
- complete lack of credible photos, videos, or other worthwhile supplementary evidence
- failure to follow standard birding practice such as honest, open, timely, and public reporting of sightings
- failure to wear standard birding attire
- frequency of sightings inversely proportional to birding experience
- previous documented instances of stringing the same species. Previous failure to distinguish Animalia from Plantae (branch stub).
- Lack of documented sightings of the bird for 60 years
I could go on, but suffice it to say that few, if any, records are submitted to reputable bird records committees with so many obvious reasons to justify a prompt and emphatic rejection.
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