to tick or not (1 Viewer)

Original PaulE · Sep 12, 2009

hi all bit of a dilema

today i was in the seawatching shelter at sheringham,all in all a very nice day with plenty of stuff going through, at one point i got a small black bird with a white rump in my scope i was about to ask for other peoples opinions when a guy next to me called that he had a leach's petrel i naturally looked up to see where he was looking taking my eyes off my bird to see that he was looking where i had been looking however despite being given loads of directions i could not regain the bird and despite the fact that i think everyone else in the shelter did see it, a combination of my inferior scope and my own incompetence, but the fact remains i didn't see the bird after it had been id so cannot be sure my bird was the same bird.
also had i been on my own i don't think i would have been able to id the bird i saw on the views i had but on the other hand i'm fairly sure my bird was the one in question

so what to do?

cheers

JTweedie · Sep 12, 2009

Personally if the bird couldn't be positively identified then I wouldn't tick it.

fugl · Sep 12, 2009

Ditto

njlarsen · Sep 12, 2009

In the end, this is your own decision, it all comes down to what is your definition of what goes onto your list. However, it would also have been a good idea to ask some of the people on the spot on what features they used to id the bird. Maybe you saw the same things, but were unaware that they were specific.

Niels

Original PaulE · Sep 12, 2009

njlarsen said:
In the end, this is your own decision, it all comes down to what is your definition of what goes onto your list. However, it would also have been a good idea to ask some of the people on the spot on what features they used to id the bird. Maybe you saw the same things, but were unaware that they were specific.

Niels

thanks njlarsen

the guys who spotted the bird did give a description of the reasons why it was a leaches petrel
however i was on my bird for such a short time i only really id the general colour and the white rump although with the view i did get i did see a bit of the flight pattern which was consistant with the description in collins
in my mind i think the bird was the same one as seen by the other guys but obviously cannot really be a hundred percent sure

cheers

Matt_RTH · Sep 12, 2009

I look at it like golf. One can conveniently not count that extra stroke or penalty, but they only ultimately cheat their self.

Some examples that irritate me when I tabulate my list:

I was in Alaska and "saw" Marbled Murrelets way to far for me to distinguish as other than dots. My guide was absolutely sure. To this day, I have not ticked MM.

Another one I'm very sure I've seen is Black Swift. Yet because I didn't take enough of a look , or photograph, or compare to the off-chance alternate of Chimney Swift, it remains unticked. Yet, how many other things could it be anyway!

I think you'll feel better not having counted it. What I do is draw in a little check box to the side or put a question mark to the side of species in my check list indicating at least I think I saw it. This reminds me to study it more in the future.

postcardcv · Sep 12, 2009

if you're not sure of the ID yourself then don't tick it... keep seawatching and you'll get one you are happy with in time.

Original PaulE · Sep 13, 2009

postcardcv said:
if you're not sure of the ID yourself then don't tick it... keep seawatching and you'll get one you are happy with in time.

hi postcardcv

hi i think overall the opinion seems to be not to tick which is fair enough but i wonder how many birders have things on their list like this for instance there must have been plenty of examples of birders going to twitches having a few seconds view of a bird that everyone says is the target which then dosn't show again that they have ticked
you could for instance as matt seems to have done apply a criteria that if you were on a walk and saw a bird for the same amount of time as you did on the above twitch would you have been able on your own to correctly identify the bird especially if there are loads of other similar species i should imagine this would greatly reduce some peoples list

how about these three examples tick or not tick

1) shingle street a couple of years ago a long staying richards pipit was in the same small area for several days i arrived on typical wind blasted winters day walked up to site with three birders met at the car park as we arrived two birders were leaving said they had seen the bird and pointed to the area where it had gone a couple of minutes later a pipit like bird flushed out of the area calling flew over our heads and landed in a field where i had brief views and another guy had slightly better views he said it was the richards pipit one of the other guys said the call was richards pipit the bird did not show again while i was there
on my views i saw nothing that would rule out richards pipit i had not met any of the other birders before and have no knowledge of their competance however had i been out on a walk on my own with no pre knowledge of the birds presence i would probably have thought what was that interesting pipit

tick or not tick?

2) couple of weeks ago in sheringham sea watching shelters was staring out to sea when someone called 7 manxies i located the birds as i watched someelse said rear bird is a balearic on focusing on the rear bird i could tell it was slightly different to the others as we watched the bird changed positions several times which was called several times which i observed and therefore i am %100 confident i was on the right bird i am also from my observations during the day that the birders were fully competant to make the call and therefore that the bird was a baleric shearwater however if i had been on my own and assuming i had seen the birds(big if) i am confident i would have id them as manxies i might even have thought the rear bird was a bit different but i'm not sure i would have got it as baleric
tick or not tick?

3) yesterday at sizewell called in as had heard black tern and little gull present went to the outfall quickly saw some little gulls then my mate and i settled on the bird that we thought looked good for black tern i would say, although don't tell him i said so, that he is of a better level of competance than me we had left our collins in the car so made some observations when we checked the collins all our observations were correct for black tern except we had observed a white rump the book said should be grey except for some variation in juveniles however we did not think the bird was a juvenile we were however watching in bright sunlight if i had been on my own with no pre knowledge i think i would have spotted the bird and i would have been able with the help of the book to id it

tick or not tick

cheers

ChrisKten · Sep 13, 2009

PaulE said:
hi postcardcv

hi i think overall the opinion seems to be not to tick which is fair enough but i wonder how many birders have things on their list like this for instance there must have been plenty of examples of birders going to twitches having a few seconds view of a bird that everyone says is the target which then dosn't show again that they have ticked
you could for instance as matt seems to have done apply a criteria that if you were on a walk and saw a bird for the same amount of time as you did on the above twitch would you have been able on your own to correctly identify the bird especially if there are loads of other similar species i should imagine this would greatly reduce some peoples list

how about these three examples tick or not tick

1) shingle street a couple of years ago a long staying richards pipit was in the same small area for several days i arrived on typical wind blasted winters day walked up to site with three birders met at the car park as we arrived two birders were leaving said they had seen the bird and pointed to the area where it had gone a couple of minutes later a pipit like bird flushed out of the area calling flew over our heads and landed in a field where i had brief views and another guy had slightly better views he said it was the richards pipit one of the other guys said the call was richards pipit the bird did not show again while i was there
on my views i saw nothing that would rule out richards pipit i had not met any of the other birders before and have no knowledge of their competance however had i been out on a walk on my own with no pre knowledge of the birds presence i would probably have thought what was that interesting pipit

tick or not tick?

2) couple of weeks ago in sheringham sea watching shelters was staring out to sea when someone called 7 manxies i located the birds as i watched someelse said rear bird is a balearic on focusing on the rear bird i could tell it was slightly different to the others as we watched the bird changed positions several times which was called several times which i observed and therefore i am %100 confident i was on the right bird i am also from my observations during the day that the birders were fully competant to make the call and therefore that the bird was a baleric shearwater however if i had been on my own and assuming i had seen the birds(big if) i am confident i would have id them as manxies i might even have thought the rear bird was a bit different but i'm not sure i would have got it as baleric
tick or not tick?

3) yesterday at sizewell called in as had heard black tern and little gull present went to the outfall quickly saw some little gulls then my mate and i settled on the bird that we thought looked good for black tern i would say, although don't tell him i said so, that he is of a better level of competance than me we had left our collins in the car so made some observations when we checked the collins all our observations were correct for black tern except we had observed a white rump the book said should be grey except for some variation in juveniles however we did not think the bird was a juvenile we were however watching in bright sunlight if i had been on my own with no pre knowledge i think i would have spotted the bird and i would have been able with the help of the book to id it

tick or not tick

cheers

This may be a little unfair, as I'm just a garden birdwatcher that goes to the local Reservoirs when I can. I just enjoy watching Wildlife, learning what I can about what I'm watching, and I like to take pictures. So basically, I just enjoy Nature.

Whatever you are doing doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me. It doesn't sound like you are enjoying yourself at all.

Sancho · Sep 13, 2009

Tick ´em all.....God will sort them out!

Original PaulE · Sep 13, 2009

as you say a bit unfair and judgemental

ChrisKten said:
This may be a little unfair, as I'm just a garden birdwatcher that goes to the local Reservoirs when I can. I just enjoy watching Wildlife, learning what I can about what I'm watching, and I like to take pictures. So basically, I just enjoy Nature.

Whatever you are doing doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me. It doesn't sound like you are enjoying yourself at all.

hi chriskten
i'm not sure how you made that judgement from my previous post which was in itself a bit of fun
i very much enjoyed all the above activities, including being blasted by the wind at shingle street, and am fast becoming addicted to seawatching the above also has to be taken in the context of my overall birding activities which is mostly going out and about locally as you say enjoying nature, days like yesterday are an occaisional foray out also whether i tick em or not is really is really not important as my list is merely a record of what i have seen or not and is not used for any other purpose and as others have said what you put on your list is up to you
i just wondered whether are not other people would have ticked the above or not
FYI all the above are on my list and i'm pretty sure the petrel will join em but then again i 'm a bit of a tart who also has manderin,ruddy shelduck, muscovey duck and feral pigeon on his list as well i'm in the sancho camp on this one

cheers

ChrisKten · Sep 13, 2009

PaulE said:
hi chriskten
i'm not sure how you made that judgement from my previous post which was in itself a bit of fun
i very much enjoyed all the above activities, including being blasted by the wind at shingle street, and am fast becoming addicted to seawatching the above also has to be taken in the context of my overall birding activities which is mostly going out and about locally as you say enjoying nature, days like yesterday are an occaisional foray out also whether i tick em or not is really is really not important as my list is merely a record of what i have seen or not and is not used for any other purpose and as others have said what you put on your list is up to you
i just wondered whether are not other people would have ticked the above or not
FYI all the above are on my list and i'm pretty sure the petrel will join em but then again i 'm a bit of a tart who also has manderin,ruddy shelduck, muscovey duck and feral pigeon on his list as well i'm in the sancho camp on this one

cheers

Fair enough, it just sounded a little complicated to me. But I may well have interpreted your post as being more serious than it actually was.

Anyway, I'm glad you enjoy it, otherwise what's the point? |=)|

postcardcv · Sep 13, 2009

From your three examples I wouldn't tick the Richard's pipit or the Balearic, but if you are happy that the apparent issue with the rump on the black tern was down the light and are happy that it was one then tick it. Whether to tick or not comes down to the individual, but if you tick stuff now that you're not sure of then you'll probably end up regretting it and removing from your list later on. There are a few birds that aren't on my list becasue the views I had of them were not conclusive, it's annoying but when you do get a good one you'll enjoy it even more.

Sancho · Sep 13, 2009

There will always be cases, I think, where a little reliance on circumstantial evidence is necessary. Seawatching is a blast, at its best when wind and waves are up, but frustrating for just that reason....often we´re relying on brief glimpses and birds disappear into troughs. I had "ticked" Leach´s some years back, and Wilson´s too, but removed both from my "list" (the world´s most unimportant document) later on the "Can-I-be-absolutely-sure" basis. Garden Warbler too (rare here). But I´m a bit harsh on myself...I like to be absolutely sure, but in the above cases I was only 99%. "In all probability" is just as frustrating as not having seen the bird at all, but really in the case of your Leach´s I think you have valid reasons for ticking it....there were I.D. features that you observed that you later read in Collins´. If you can rule out Stormy, isn´t that how we deduce these things? Have a look at some video footage in Opus, and photos in the Gallery, these might help you clinch it. BTW, this year I finally managed to re-install Leach´s and Wilson´s on my list, but not Garden Warbler yet. And I "ticked" Red-throated Pipit some years back in pretty much the same circumstances as your Richard´s....in the area it was frequenting, with the guy who had found it. A pipit flew, made an unusual call, and the finder said "that´s it!". I probably would have got it on the call later, but I relied on the finder´s expertise, not on visuals...it was a flying, silhouetted pipit. It is great fun, probably because sometimes it´s hard. If all ID´s were easy, we wouldn´t get such a blast out of clinching hard ones. And it´s not about "adding to a list", it´s about being sure we´ve seen what we thought we saw. In any case, whether you decide that was a Leach´s or not, it probably won´t be long before you see another one, now you´ve got the seawatching bug....:t:

Original PaulE · Sep 13, 2009

postcardcv said:
From your three examples I wouldn't tick the Richard's pipit or the Balearic, but if you are happy that the apparent issue with the rump on the black tern was down the light and are happy that it was one then tick it. Whether to tick or not comes down to the individual, but if you tick stuff now that you're not sure of then you'll probably end up regretting it and removing from your list later on. There are a few birds that aren't on my list becasue the views I had of them were not conclusive, it's annoying but when you do get a good one you'll enjoy it even more.

hi it's interesting that you rejected those two and not the tern i thought most people would have thought to tick the balearic as of the three it was the only one that was definately id although not by me and i definately did see it i suppose it depends whether you tick birds that you have seen or those that you id yourself
i think that having thought about it i'm going to create another list of birds i have seen that i'm hundred percent certain that i could id myself from the views i had and see how many i have to chalk off i can think of 2 off the top of my head barred warbler at landguard and pallas's warbler at holme last year in both cases the views of the bird i got were fleeting even though i got several views of both in both cases i was relying on other people present for the id although in both cases i'm happy in my own mind that both id's were correct

cheers

Original PaulE · Sep 13, 2009

readjustment

right

not as bad as i thought

having looked at my list i removed all feral types and then applied the criteria as to whether i had seen enough of the remaining birds diagnostic features to make an ID on my own regardless whether these features were pointed out to me or whether i knew the bird was present or not as i feel that this makes no difference i have reduced my list from 247 to 223 all seen in england or wales

cheers

username · Sep 13, 2009

PaulE.........if you stay 'in the game' of birding long enuff you will develop your own ideas about what is acceptable and what is not! It never ceases to amaze me what some people find 'acceptable'...[i suppose i shoudn't be so amazed by now]!...but hey...that's for individuals to decide....and you can always change your mind at a later date.
A note on sea-watching.....don't believe half the stuff some folk call out......tis a stringers paradise out there! [Always reads good on the pager tho don't it]?!

ps..you should have 'stayed' on your petrel...[bet it was a leaches]...
pps....a richards pipit calling is distinctive enuff to an 'old hand'...but for your first one?...well....up to you....! Have fun.......

Original PaulE · Sep 13, 2009

username said:
PaulE.........if you stay 'in the game' of birding long enuff you will develop your own ideas about what is acceptable and what is not! It never ceases to amaze me what some people find 'acceptable'...[i suppose i shoudn't be so amazed by now]!...but hey...that's for individuals to decide....and you can always change your mind at a later date.
A note on sea-watching.....don't believe half the stuff some folk call out......tis a stringers paradise out there! [Always reads good on the pager tho don't it]?!

ps..you should have 'stayed' on your petrel...[bet it was a leaches]...
pps....a richards pipit calling is distinctive enuff to an 'old hand'...but for your first one?...well....up to you....! Have fun.......

hi
yes i can imagine how easy it can be to call the wrong thing when your sea watching i suppose you hope people will be big enough to admit the mistake i tended to say if i had seen something whats this over here instead of attempting an id i guess you just have to make a judgement about the people there based on the way they act at the time the two guys in our bit of the shelter were not just calling stuff out they were pointing out the various id points as well also they didn't really try to id the very distant stuff and seemed happy to leave some stuff as eg skua sp rather than id every bird
yes i should have stayed on my bird rest assured that is a lesson learnt!!!

cheers

lockbreeze926 · Sep 13, 2009

It's an old debate but it always seems to me that the only person who should care about any list is (s)he who owns it; therefore, it is an entirely subjective matter as to whether x or y should be ticked in specific circumstances. Which is to say - if you think it's ok, then it's ok.

Alternatively, I do know a number of birders who have a loose, personal (and not entirely serious) grading system for their lists, from a 5 (sat on a nearby perch in full view in good light) down to a 1 (distant speck, briefly glimpsed).

The only exception to the rule of subjectivity would be where some sort of pre-determined rules were agreed between "competitors" in a contest, where clearly there has to be absolute compliance. But competitive listing is another discussion.

username · Sep 13, 2009

PaulE said:
hi
yes i can imagine how easy it can be to call the wrong thing when your sea watching i suppose you hope people will be big enough to admit the mistake i tended to say if i had seen something whats this over here instead of attempting an id i guess you just have to make a judgement about the people there based on the way they act at the time the two guys in our bit of the shelter were not just calling stuff out they were pointing out the various id points as well also they didn't really try to id the very distant stuff and seemed happy to leave some stuff as eg skua sp rather than id every bird
yes i should have stayed on my bird rest assured that is a lesson learnt!!!

cheers

Accessing credibility of other birders is another form of ID which requires practice....

..........the clues are everywhere tho.....even on forums...:eek!:

ps....there was a recent 'bit' on Punkbirders site about Sheringham sea-watching.....where someone wrote...something along the lines of...all 'these' good birds must be passing by 'inland' of Sheringham...as he never see's em....[made me chuckle]! I've had many a good seawatch off there...but probably more fairly average 'naff' watches...[but later...according to folk reporting to page services..it was brilliant..long tails..poms..etc...where were 'they' lookin then...inland]?.....makes you larff....

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