Hi all,
After taking a look at the eBird checklist that this report came from,
it's clearly from a beginning birder who only recorded three conspicuous
and easily identified species.
So even though it was a hoot to have this report of a sedentary species
pop up so far out of range in the eBird automated rare-bird alert last
night, I wouldn't want to laugh at a beginner's mistake. We were all in
that situation once, just those of us who started earlier were blessed
by having less rapid means of communicating our mistakes to the world.
Conceivably there might be a "Yellow-shafted" Northern Flicker flying
around at Finley NWR HQ. If someone were, say, looking at Sibley's field
guide to western birds, on one side of the page you have a Red-shafted
Flicker, and on the other side, there's a Gilded Flicker. It could be
easy to miss the Yellow-shafted variant way down at the bottom of the
page.
Good birding,
Joel
--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis
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