Hello, Birders. On the way back from the Wyoming Hereford Ranch, Laramie County, Wyoming (trip report, http://tinyurl.com/239pzvu), yesterday, Friday, Aug. 27th, Andrew I stopped by Union Reservoir, Weld County.
In the extreme northwestern corner of the reservoir, we saw a nice little flock of terns, including 2 Black Terns, 4 Common Terns, and 5 Forster's Terns. According to eBird, those are the first Common Terns reported thus far this fall in Colorado. Over at nearby Jim Hamm Nature Study Area, in blessed Boulder County, we saw 1 unidentified mangled Sterna tern. And that unidentfied tern--we'll call it Sterna spuh--brings up a point I've been meaning to make. It's wonderful that so many Colorado birders are getting into eBird, and I'd like to point out that eBird offers birders the option to enter "spuhs" for practically all unidentified birds. Like that Sterna spuh Andrew and I saw flying by Jim Hamm. My guess it was a Forster's, but I'm just not sure. So I entered it as Sterna spuh, a perfectly legitimate "listing" option. In my opinion, Colorado eBirders aren't entering nearly as many "spuhs" as they should. If you're out birding for the better part of a day, and if you do NOT see or hear any spuhs, then you probably aren't paying attention. Recently, I was looking over an enumeration of "spuhs" from Colorado, and I noticed that they tend to come from some of the best birders in North America: Marshall Iliff, Chris Wood, people like that. Those guys know hard IDs: Glossy Ibis, Chihuahuan Raven, Blue-headed Vireo, Gray-cheeked Thrush, Mourning Warbler, stuff like that. But they also know when to say "I don't know," and their lists will often have entries like Plegadis spuh, raven spuh, "Solitary Vireo" spuh, Catharus spuh, and Oporornis spuh. There's no shame in entering spuhs. In fact, it's quite the contrary. If you're entering "spuhs," you'll quickly earn the respect of the birding community. ------------------------------- Ted Floyd Editor, Birding Follow Birding magazine on Twitter: http://twitter.com/BirdingMagazine ------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
