[obol] Re: seawatch techniques
- From: "Phil Pickering" <philliplc@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2015 09:20:33 -0800
An ideal seawatch on a day of heavy movement
would involve a small team of observers
That would help with the accuracy of large numbers,
but I thought Tim was questioning more if I'm reporting
birds to species that I'm not actually identifying
individually. To be clear the answer is yes. In the
case of phalaropes yesterday most of them.
But.. I don't think the fact that it's possible there
were a small minority of Red-neckeds in with what
was clearly a movement of at least mostly Reds
(based on sampling close birds and on traditional data
for this time of year) is reason enough to justify reporting
significant numbers as "phalarope sp." I think that
would just be an inaccurate reflection of state of
knowledge.
Any large movement may have an unidentified
minority component that is sneaking by, which is
why I said I hoped that type of qualifier can simply
be presumed. I'm not actually able to distinguish
99% of Common Murres I report from Thick-billed,
but it would seem pretty silly to put down a bunch
of "murre sp." simply for that reason.
So the fact that I only reported Red Phalaropes
yesterday and didn't put down any phalarope sp.
should not at all be taken to reflect certainty on
my part that no Red-necked were present.
Cheers, Phil
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