Clear skies, temps in the low 70's, and S winds that ended the day at a code 5 (yes, sand was blowing).
Oh, and a Tiscornia first.
10 CANG
13 GADW
9 AMWI
43 MALL
8 NOPI
4 NSHO
14 GWTE
1 REDH
10 RNDU (good count)
9 LESC
129 Scaup sp
4 SUSC
16 RBME
2 COLO
1 HOGR
8 DCCO
4 BBPL
12 KILL (huge fall count)
19 DUNL
18 PESA
19 LBDO (Probably a county highcount, and a Tiscornia first! Which brings us up to 34 species of shorebirds for Tiscornia!)
15 BOGU
3 FOTE
Amongst the PISI, SNBU, HOLA, and LALO getting blown around today we had 22 CASW (and two swallow sp. almost certainly CASW) go by heading south into the wind. This is a county highcount, and one of the highest counts ever recorded in the state. Matt has more details on these over in his blog (Berrien Birder).
Just remember that CASW are a writeup bird in Michigan (we can't be as blessed as Ontario), and thus to get accepted into the state records HAVE TO BE WRITTEN UP, and by that I mean you have to write up every single bird in the flock as a INDIVIDUAL (unless you get photos of the whole flock, and even then you should probably write them up). So for today's birds that would be twenty-two writeups. And hell, even if you do write them up (and submit photos), they'll still take the "conservative" approach and reject over half of them.
A possible committee motto:
If you don't write it up, you miss id'ed it.
If do you write it up, you still miss id'ed it.
(that outta get things stirred up!)
photo by Matt Hysell
Tim,
ReplyDeleteAs someone who has also seen a group of Cave Swallows for Michigan, you do not need to write up 22 reports. If all 22 birds exhibited the same characteristics (as I imagine they would), it would be sufficient to state something along the lines of "the following details pertain to all xx individuals." That's how reports of mulitple individuals have been handled by numerous observers in the past. I'm not sure who told you that 22 write-ups would be required but I doubt anyone could reasonably expect you to put that much work in when just one piece of documentation would be sufficient! Congratulations on such an awesome flock of birds!
Brad Murphy,
MBRC Secretary