[obol] Re: Wherefore art thou, oh albatross?

  • From: David Irons <llsdirons@xxxxxxx>
  • To: paul sullivan <paultsullivan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, OBOL Oregon Birders Online <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2014 17:34:57 +0000

Paul,
You ask:

So many folks have gone out on pelagic trips with guides.  They didn’t or don’t 
own a GPS unit.  They weren’t on the bridge next to the Loran or GPS.  They saw 
the ___________ albatross and the ____________shearwater and put it on their 
life and county lists.  They acted in good faith.  How are they to go back and 
retroactively move that seabird into another column?
For those have done pelagic trips out of Lincoln County ports (Newport and 
Depoe Bay) or Tillamook County (Garibaldi), it can be pretty much assumed that 
you never left the county of origin during those trips, particularly Tillamook. 
I know that Greg Gillson has run at least one Newport trip that purposely 
targeted Lane County to help me with my Lane County Big Year several years ago 
(thanks Greg). Many Lane County birders went on that trip, as it was a rare 
opportunity to do pelagic birding in that county. Oregon Shorebird Festival 
pelagics out of Charleston and Bandon particularly, probably ended up in Curry 
waters (by this new definition), unless they stay due west or northwest. 

If you look closely at the map Mike provided, you might notice that the major 
divergence between straight line boundaries and CPL boundaries is most evident 
far offshore and that the nearshore lines run mostly east-west out to at least 
the edge of the continental shelf 40+ miles offshore.  Conventional pelagic 
trips rarely get more than about 35 miles offshore and the shorter Coos County 
trips (Shorebird Festival) have generally only gotten out about 25 miles. The 
Coos/Curry CPL appears to have the steepest nearshore slope, but if you look at 
the relative position of Cape Arago, the little knob north or Cape Blanco, you 
can see that a trip out of Charleston (which is just n. of Cape Arago) would 
have to take a strong southwesterly course and go about at least 40 miles to 
end up in Curry. Presuming that birds seen on trips out of Charleston were in 
Coos is surely safe. 
To my knowledge, there hasn't been a pelagic trip out of Hammond for a long 
time. Given how much of what we traditionally considered to be Clatsop Co. 
waters is lies in the wedge closest to North Head (in WA), any assumption that 
trips out of Hammond spent the entire day in Clatsop waters is probably faulty. 
It would be very difficult, if not impossible, for any of us to retroactively 
correct our county lists, especially for birds that were seen in the pre-GPS 
era. I think this is a going forward thing and no one is expecting folks to go 
back through all their sightings and make corrections to the county 
assignments. Aside from trips out of Hammond or Bandon, my guess is that you 
wouldn't find much to change anyway.
I don't have all of the exact data points for the at-sea birds that I saw in 
Lane County during my big year, so I will not be attempting to re-trace my 
steps. If someone wants to challenge to validity of my record on the basis of 
this change, I will not get my knickers in a wad. I had a blast seeing those 
289 species and sharing it with lots of great birding companions. An adoption 
of this boundary change could not possibly taint or discredit that experience, 
as I played the game under the rules of the day. As you point out, I acted in 
good faith, as have all others who counted birds for counties they thought they 
were in at the time. In essence they were in the county they thought they were 
in. I can't imagine why anyone would waste too much time trying to dissect old 
trip lists to get the counties perfect, and frankly, nobody is going to care. 
Dave IronsPortland, OR

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