At the end of our Big Day, we had an owl fly-by at twilight. It was biggish, so our first thought was Great Horned. But we all noticed it wasn't that big and the flight pattern (on a windless night) was wrong. Great Horneds also tend to prefer habitat lower in elevation. Only one out of four of us got a wing feather detail, and the conclusion was: Long-eared Owl.
Now. Long-eared would be a lifer for me. But all I got was relative size, flight pattern and habitat. No plumage details or vocalization. There's not much else it could have been, and confirmation came from the one in our group who did get the wing crescents.
So the question I pose to you all is: do I tick it off on my life list or not? What are your criteria for that? What would you do?
Posted by MadMonk at May 10, 2004 04:13 PMIt's your list - you decide! Ticking a bird on fleeting views because it couldn't be anything else is not exactly satisfying (I did this with Olive Warbler), but if it couldn't be anything else, why not?
Enjoyed reading about your birdathon. I did a Big Day in Yolo Co., N California yesterday and got a surprisingly similar species total (143), though the species composition was entirely different.
Posted by: rhall at May 10, 2004 09:54 PMSince it's your life list, you can certainly count it if you feel comfortable doing so. I had a similar situation. Back in 1986, a Worm-eating Warbler showed up in San Diego where I was living at the time. I went to see it, but never got a good look. It flew from the bushes, and another birder who had it in his binoculars yelled out "there it goes." I saw the bird fly, but it could of been anything. I never felt comfortable having it on my list until I saw a Worm-eating Warbler here in Indiana last year.
Posted by: Birdingdave at May 12, 2004 12:31 AM