12 replies to this topic

[Benjamin DeHaven]

So I am realizing that I need to go back and review my pictures and make sure what I know now about iding birds jive with what I thought I knew in the beginning. Right now my list stands at 130. I fear it will fall after I review a couple flycatcher and a green winged teal.

Have you ever had to remove a bird from your list? How long was the bird on your list?

Just looking to see if any other newish birders have my dread and pain...

Benjamin DeHaven

[Forestina]

I am brand new at this so I am not at that point yet. Everything I have seen so far, I am getting verified here until I am sure. I assume it would be a bummer to realize you were wrong but much better than thinking you saw something you didn't. And how much sweeter when you get to see the real thing

[illin]

Can't remember where I read the quote, it was attributed to a famous birder possibly Kenn Kaufman. It said "The difference between an experienced birder and an inexperienced one is that the inexperienced birder has misidentified a few birds while the experienced one has misidentified hundreds." Or something like that. Anyway you can get the gist of a very important point.

[cwj2323]

Not too long ago, I misidentified a bird so removed it from the list. But then a month later, I actually got to claim that previous mistake as a lifer and a yard bird.

[fisherman1313]

I was at Point Reyes in the fall of 2010 and thought I saw a Pacific Loon, but I did not really take a good look at the bird. I counted it but had been thinking about taking it off my list for several months. I finally decided to delete it, but I've also added a bird that I saw over a year ago and finally IDed on the Fourth of July. Here's the link to the thread about my belated bird; http://www.whatbird....-list-addition/

[Desertthorn]

I removed some birds from my list that I actually decided captured birds shouldn't be included. I knew that in my heart but when I frist started I thought numbers were important. Now, while I keep a life list, numbers are not as important as the sighting itself. I have an Egyptian Goose that I haven't removed yet. I saw it at the Cibola NWR in AZ but I'm thinking it might be captured. Its a toss up and I may or maynot remove it.

[Benjamin DeHaven]

That's a tough one. It's much more likely that the Egyptian Goose was imported as a pet or farm stock, but there is always the chance it flew from its home range (to lazy to look that up atm) to Arizona. I felt that same annoyance (to a much lesser degree considering the birds involved though) when I saw my first "domestic" Peking Duck swimming with some Mallards in a drainage overflow pond in the "wild". I didn't realize until I got home that Peking Duck wasn't on any of my checklists (insert Peking Duck on the menu joke here...). I have seen pictures of the Egyptian Goose and they are beautiful, that would be exciting to stumble upon!

Benjamin DeHaven

PS. I stated in my first post in this thread that I needed to verify, among other things, the sighting of the Green Winged Teal. I am happy to report that after looking at the pictures I took, not only did I get one, I got both a male and a female and the pictures were very clear which allowed for an unmistakable ID of the Teal. Now my Willow Flycatcher and Eastern Phoebe are my concern.

[fisherman1313]

Benjamin, seeing Peking Duck in the wild would be quite extraordinary (especially if it was still alive), Peking Duck is a dish served in Chinese restaurants (as you alluded to in your post), the white domestic ducks are Pekin Ducks, just so you know.

[JimBob]

First off, I've had to remove several birds from my life list. Most were captive.

Second, at Murray Lake I saw two Pekin Ducks. . . aka domestic mallards. Slightly larger then wild ones, and white.

[Benjamin DeHaven]

Benjamin, seeing Peking Duck in the wild would be quite extraordinary (especially if it was still alive), Peking Duck is a dish served in Chinese restaurants (as you alluded to in your post), the white domestic ducks are Pekin Ducks, just so you know.

Ah, what a difference a "g" makes. I did look them up originally and I guess I completely missed that difference. I just assumed these white ducks where kept by farms that sold mainly to Chinese restaurants but a few lucky ducks escaped. I guess that's still true, but again, back to that "g". Difference between a white duck that seems to have a thing for Mallards (judging by the hybrids I find around here) and a cooked duck floating in a lake.

Oh well, won't look at that duck the same again.

Benjamin DeHaven

[fisherman1313]

Not all park ducks are escapees. I posted this in another thread, so you may have read it already, but here it is if not; Many domestic ducks get dumped in public parks when the cute little duckling given to a child as an Easter present grows into a noisy adult and starts pooping everywhere. Or, as in the case with the ducks my sister and I had when I was so little I can't even remember it now, one dies and the other one gets "lonely".

I used to think the white ducks were called Peking when I was a kid so you are not alone, it's a pretty common mistake.

[creeker]

Since I started birding at age 7, I have removed some of my earliest sightings from my list. I keep track of my lifers in the back of field guides, and I lost one that had all of my sightings in it. I had to try to redo it by memory. I had to leave off all that I couldn't pinpoint as to when I saw them. It's funny, I thought I remembered seeing Varied Thrush as a kid, in my mom's garden, but I started doubting my memory and de-listed it. A few years later, I was visiting my mom, and guess what bird showed again some 30 years later in her garden. So Varied Thrush got re-listed. There's probably about 20 or so species that should be on my list, but I just couldn't pin down that sighting.

[Liam]

When I was younger I was an optimist. Anything that might have been something, probably was. Like a raptor that flew over my car when I was 9 in Virginia. I counted it as a Merlin, even though it was probably Sharp-shinned Hawk or something. I didn't go by field marks, but rather by possibility. I'd already seen a Sharp-shinned Hawk, so, hell why not a Merlin?
I had somewhere around 320 birds on my list until I realized that it was ridiculous to count a species I wasn't positive I had seen. I removed a ton of birds from my lifelist and ended up with something like 170.
Then there were the birds I had misidentified through my own ignorance, such as the "Snow Goose", which was actually a Pilgrim Goose gander, or the "Clay-colored Sparrow" which was really a nonbreeding Chipping Sparrow.
Nowadays I keep birds that I'm ~75% sure on (as opposed to 100%), on my list with an asterik by them. These only include: Worm-eating Warbler, Prairie Warbler, Common Raven, Semipalmated Sandpiper, and LeConte's Sparrow