I went out to do a bit of early morning bird watching on Christmas morning in Cottage Grove, Lane Co. where my folks live. I went to a little park that used to be a gravel quarry and is now series of shrubby ponds. Black Phoebes had been reported at this site and I thought I'd go looking for them. It was a nice morning with lots of sparrows and a very cooperative phoebe.
Then I heard the noise, series of chucks and whistles, that no regularly occurring species would make. It stopped before I could get a good make on its position and no amount of pishing seemed to rouse it into calling again. I processed the call... vaguely chat-like, but not a chat. Mockingbird? Catbird?....maybe Brown Thrasher. I waited around a bit then went back to my parent's house and immediately got on the internet and downloaded a Brown Thrasher recording. Not exactly right, but close enough to put the word out, just in case... possible Brown Thrasher at East Regional Park.
Of course anyone who read the title of this piece and has an inkling of the literary definition of foreshadowing, knows it wasn't a Brown Thrasher.
The next morning I was out at the park again and the first bird I heard while getting out of the car was this thing, except much louder. The volume alone meant it couldn't be a thrasher. Within a half hour or so, I had come to the conclusion, later confirmed by another birder familiar with the site, that I was hearing a recording of scary bird noises coming from a building next to the park. The recording was meant to frighten starlings and gulls away from the roof....
We birders have a ridiculous need to attach a name to everything we see or hear. And we almost reflexively pick rare over common, extraordinary over mundane. I should know better. Just two months ago a very small kitten had me convinced I was chasing a Catbird through the shrubbery. I had actually excluded cat because I expected something larger than a 6 inch kitten (probably barely weaned and certainly abandoned). Not seeing a big cat and not pushing enough grass out of the way to see a tiny one, I assumed it must be a bird. It even answered to the Catbird tape I returned with.
Nobody's perfect.....
And I'd rather be on record reporting Catbirds in a timely fashion that turn out to be cats, than shy away from the probables and get chewed out for not sharing when they turn out to be something.
But that doesn't make being wrong any easier.
Posted by mbalame at December 28, 2004 5:54 AM