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From: sandee@sun16.scri.fsu.edu (Daan Sandee)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Glad I went birding Sunday.
Summary: sharp-tailed sandpiper
Keywords: listing, ABA
Message-ID: <1354@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: 7 Nov 90 14:29:00 GMT
References: <1990Nov7.074024.2192@nmt.edu>
Sender: news@sun13.scri.fsu.edu
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University
Lines: 52

In article <1990Nov7.074024.2192@nmt.edu> john@nmt.edu (John Shipman) writes:
>Sometimes you just have to drop everything and go birdwatching.
> .....
>But the plumage was all wrong for a Pectoral.  The crown showed a
>strong reddish cast.  There was a prominent white line over the
>eye that got slightly wider behind the eye.  While Pectorals
>always have a brown streaky chest that terminates cleanly at the
>top of the white belly, this bird had a warm buff chest devoid of
>streaking, the buff fading gradually to a white belly.  There was
>a bit of dark streaking off to the sides of the chest, but none
>in the middle.  The legs were yellow.  The feathering of the
>upper back looked scaly, the feathers having dark centers and
>buff margin.
>A little later I found a Pectoral, and it looked very different.  No
>rust on the head, no noticeable eyeline, chest sharply delineated.
>Okay, I said to myself, I just got my lifer Sharp-tailed Sandpiper.
>Also happened to be my 350th species in New Mexico.
>I was wondering exactly how rare it was in the state.  I got home
>and checked the references.  Holy Toledo, it's a first state
>record!
>-- 
>John Shipman/Zoological Data Processing/Socorro, NM/john@jupiter.nmt.edu

Congratulations ...
There was one in Monterey lately, and I tried hard, but the only bird I
found wasn't good enough. A group of pectorals with one bird looking and
behaving differently : russet brown above, buff breast, distinct
eyestripe, but unfortunately, very distinct streaking on breast, just like
a pectoral. Didn't know what to call it, really, but I privately think it
was a sharptail/pectoral hybrid.
I can't even be sure that this wasn't the bird that was reported as a sh.t. ;
but I *am* sure that this was the bird that many people saw *after* the first
report and happily added to their life list ...

A much worse dilemma on the same trip was when, on a pelagic trip out of
Bodega Bay led by Rich Stallcup, he and I and a dozen other people saw
what appeared to be a Townsend's Shearwater - would be first N.Am. record,
but unfortunately nobody had a camera ready, so it's not going to be
accepted. Now my problem is : can I put a bird on my list that ABA is not
going to accept as a N.Am. bird? Answer : no. (I *do* count my Masked Tityra
in the hope that they'll get around to accepting it - only about a hundred
people have photographs of that one). Next question : if and when ABA (based
on another observation) does put Townsend's on the list, can I count my bird?
Answer : yes (as long as the consensus of the experts who saw it, and
reported it, is still that it was a T.S.). So there's still hope.

Otherwise, the more thrilling experiences of eleven days in California
were a Garganey and an earthquake.

Daan Sandee                                           sandee@sun16.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052  (904) 644-7045