January 11, 2009
Studies in ambiguity
For your perusal, two quiz birds. The first a regularly occurring winter visitor barely identifiable in this photo and therefore perhaps too hard for the some. It was taken today, the only shot I was able to get off, at a feeder near a wetland along DeLaura Beach Rd.
The birds in the second photo are easily identifiable, but which variety variety are they? Why are only males seen at this location and should I count then on my life list?
In a perfect world, every photograph would be in perfect focus and show all field marks perfectly. And in a perfect world every species would be cleanly separable from every other species and of impeccable provenance. Reality bites.
In the real world, boundaries are often as fuzzy as that first, out of focus photo in this essay.
Sometimes the ambiguity is in the number of details we are able to collect in the process of observation. We can't be sure what we've seen because we don't have enough information. Other times the ambiguity is in the very definition of the beast we're observing. Is it a "real" species? Is it a hybrid, tainted with the genes of some second species? Does it hail from a viable wild population? or does it owe its presence to human intercession?
In the world of what counts and what doesn't count these kinds of ambiguities can be frustrating. More than one possible answer to a question invariably leads to more than one opinion about which possibility is correct. Then the shouting starts.
Of course, we have rules that are supposed to help clarify the boundaries and give them some kind of definition, but they almost never satisfy everyone. Not too long ago, I posted this photo.
It's a pale WINTER WREN. Some people thought it was a Rock Wren. Some people thought it was a House Wren. Some people correctly called it a Winter Wren. Of course, one of the points of a good quiz bird is to show a bird in a funny posture, or out of context or something else that might make people guess wrong. The deeper point is that this happens all the time in the field. We take ambiguous information and try to make it concrete. It is human nature to want to create certainty. But sometimes we guess wrong.
I have always maintained that I learn more from being wrong than from being right. That doesn't make being wrong any easier, or being right any less satisfying. Recognizing uncertainty, ambiguity, the possibility of being wrong does temper my investment in an opinion, however, and that helps soften the fall on those occasions when I should eventually find myself overwhelmed by the facts.
The two photos in this quiz each hold their own special kinds of ambiguity. I know what's in the first photo, because I have more information than you all, but I do believe that there are two good field marks visible in the photo to get to a proper ID. The second photo carries with it a deeper ambiguity which goes to the difference between can and should. Yes, there are probably self-sustaining wild birds somewhere in Oregon which I can count, but should I count every bird I see? or are some of these guys just extra fancy, free-range chickens?
Posted by mbalame at January 11, 2009 12:19 PM