[texbirds] Re: Subject: Re: Yellow Rail? Panhandle

  • From: Fred Collins <fcndc@xxxxxxxx>
  • To: "c.o.carver@xxxxxxxxx" <c.o.carver@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2014 20:47:18 -0500

Actually Cameron, joking aside, if I was the reviewer I would accept it with 
those details.

Fred Collins
At home on the prairie
Waller, TX
Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 7, 2014, at 4:40 PM, Cameron Carver <c.o.carver@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Fred and Texbirds folk,
> 
> There was no "thinking" that we saw white in the wing. The white was strong 
> and evident. It was what made me immediately yell out Yellow Rail when it 
> flushed. My coworker was unfamiliar with the species, but his first comment 
> was about the white in the wings. While I know that juvenile Sora can show 
> pale in the wings (as I alluded to in my original post), would the pale be 
> that evident?
> We also tried flushing the bird a second time without success. We only viewed 
> the bird in flight for ~3 seconds.
> 
> And you are correct, my field notes rely almost totally on the general 
> feeling I had of the bird as it flushed and the white in the wings. A field 
> sketch would have been useless as it would have been from memory. As I stated 
> earlier this year, your memory has a tendency to fill in gaps that are not 
> the truth. As eBird reviewer for the Panhandle, I must hold a standard for 
> all sightings. I have invalidated my sightings before for lack of evidence 
> and I will not hesitate to do it again. As this Yellow Rail may be a first 
> county record (I haven't had time to check) and is an early date, 
> invalidation seems likely unless the statewide reviewers step in and decide 
> otherwise.
> 
> Thanks to those who have chimed in!
> Cameron Carver
> Lubbock, TX
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Sep 7, 2014, at 10:00, Fred Collins <fcndc@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> 
>> I have spent a fair amount of time watching rice harvest for rails. It is 
>> pretty easy to be mislead by flushing immature Sora Rails. Their rear wing 
>> white lining can catch the light and reflect very brightly. Also the overall 
>> color of the bird is so light compared to adult Soras that also lets the 
>> imagination work wonders. In spite of trying I have never found a Yellow 
>> Rail during the August harvest cut and by the next cut, usually in October 
>> Yellow Rails are common enough they are easily differentiated from Sora. 
>> It's one of those things that if you think you saw wing patches you likely 
>> didn't because when you actually see them you KNOW you did. In all my years 
>> of working wet fields and marshes I have only walked up one yellow rail away 
>> from coastal areas or rice fields. That was in a Brazos County lake margin 
>> pasture in October. All of the window kills I recall we're also October. 
>> 
>> Of course sketches and field notes would help but as a young fellow once 
>> wrote " if it wasn't photographed it didn't happen" ;-)
>> 
>> Fred Collins
>> At home on the prairie
>> In Waller County
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