Or "sandpiper sp." or "sapsucker sp." But it's alphabetical. sa*G*e...sand *H*ill...
--Ted Floyd Lafayette, Boulder County On Saturday, April 1, 2017 at 6:05:00 PM UTC-6, Karl Stecher Jr. wrote: > > I would have thought that Say's phoebe would have come up first. > > Karl Stecher > Centennial/Arapahoe > > > > ------------------------------ > *From*: "Ted Floyd" <[email protected] <javascript:>> > *Sent*: Saturday, April 01, 2017 6:00 PM > *To*: "Colorado Birds" <[email protected] <javascript:>> > *Subject*: [cobirds] Of sage thrashers, sandhill cranes, strange > coincidences, and the inevitable arbitrariness of eBird > > Okay, that sounds like the beginning of a really lame April Fools joke, > but, actually, it's a true story. Here goes... > > Yesterday, Friday, March 31, Andrew Floyd and I had an errand to run, and > we just happened to be in the vicinity of Prince Lake No. 2, eastern > Boulder County, where we saw a drive-by *sage thrasher > <http://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/52946471>.* It was raining, and I was > lazy, so we just snapped a few photos from the car. I sort of brought the > car to a stop. Then, this Saturday morning, Apr. 1, Hannah Floyd and I had > an errand to run in the exact same vicinity of eastern Boulder County, so > we stopped by--you guessed it--Prince Lake No. 2, where we saw a drive-by > *sandhill > crane <http://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/53036331>.* Same deal as the day > before: rainy, lazy, sort of stopped the car, snapped a few photos from the > car, and continued on our way. > > Now here's where the story gets weird. > > When I went to eBird the 3/31 sage thrasher, the smart search > ("S"..."A"...) took me to s-a-n-d-h-i-l-l, but not to s-a-g-e, because sage > thrasher trips the Boulder County filter in March, but sandhill crane does > not. As to the 4/1, sandhill crane, it was déja vu all over again: The > eBird smart search ("S"..."A"...) returned s-a-g-e, but not > s-a-n-d-h-i-l-l, because sandhill crane trips the Boulder County filter in > April, but sage thrasher does not. Is that freaky or what? And it reprises > a recent thread at the CFO Facebook site, wherein (certain) folks were > grousing about the (allegedly) too-tight filters for Colorado. I, for one, > consider the Colorado eBird filters to be set at just the right tension, > especially along the well-birded I-25 corridor. And, well, you have to draw > boundaries somewhere (3/31 for *SA*ge thrasher, 4/1 for *SA*ndhill crane, > etc.), and I coincidentally got burned twice: Same place, same car, same > situation, *SA*me first two letters. Even Bill Kaempfer couldn't have > devised such a scheme. > > Over at the nearby Greenlee Preserve–Waneka Lake–Thomas Open Space–Hecla > Pond ecological complex, eastern Boulder County, things were decently birdy > this dreary Saturday morning, Apr. 1: among 40 species, a pair of *wood > ducks,* a drake *hooded merganser,* molting *horned grebes,* a hybrid > *northern > flicker,* a *prairie merlin,* *American bushtit *pairs, a singing *Rubicon > kinglet,* a latish *dark-eyed junco,* *white-crowned sparrows* on the > move, a *spotted towhee* that couldn't quite commit to singing a full > song, and *common grackles* out the wazoo. Photos, audio, and eBird > checklist here: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S35609657 > > Ted Floyd > Lafayette, Boulder County > > > > e > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Colorado Birds" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] <javascript:> > . > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/8d3cc84f-a3b0-48aa-963a-64beddd15835%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/8d3cc84f-a3b0-48aa-963a-64beddd15835%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/c1d06f10-9468-4b0a-b7ce-5150df8e45e8%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
