Medium sized bird hops in yard. Robin. Larger bird, chunky, flies toward roost. Green Heron.
Two warblers sing, Golden-winged & Parula. Another warbler sings once. Yellow, or Chestnut-sided? Medium sized bird flies away from window, nothing to distinguish. Unidentified. Flycatcher lands on branch. No song or call. Unidentified empid. Distant peep. Brief scan, skipped. ID is such an interesting skill, embracing strengths & weaknesses, conscious & unconscious factors, experience & study, confidence & timidity, science & intuition, passion & dislike. Robin was ID'd on jizz, bouncy behavior, didn't need to see obvious field marks. Flying Green Heron was on shape, known roost area, lack of BC Night Herons in county. Passionate about warblers, so Golden-winged and Parula easy calls. Some Yellows and Chestnut-sided sound nearly identical, past field trip leadership gaffes bring caution. Medium-sized bird escapes before any factors established (interestingly, could have been Robin). I tend to ID flycatchers by song, so fall empids are problem. And I don't have a passion for small, distant shorebirds, so lack of care leads to lack of ID. Your experience & thoughts? Al Schirmacher ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
