The basis for acceptance of reports of unusual birds has changed over the years, and continues to evolve. From the beginning of bird study in America to well into the 1950’s, reports of rare birds were seldom taken seriously by the authorities, namely, professional ornithologists, except over the barrel of a shotgun. You had to show them the body. Sight records were considered hypothetical, not quite believable.
Thus, when George Grinnell and Alden Miller, then the deans of California ornithology, summarized the status of the birds of our state in a 1944 book, sight-only records were placed in an appendix of birds “of uncertain occurrence.” One such bird was the whooping crane. Grinnell and Miller noted that Lyman Belding, one of the best field ornithologists of his era, reported seeing small flocks of this species twice in the Sacramento Valley, in fall 1884 and spring 1891. They quote Belding: “Both flocks were [of] large white cranes, with black wing tips, and the latter flock was soaring in the manner of sand-hill cranes.” They note, “This is almost as conclusive a determination, by sight only, as one could wish.” But, in keeping with the rules at the time, they classed it as hypothetical.
As the number of bird-watchers grew, and many more people used field guides, bird identification by shotgun was replaced by detailed written descriptions, largely following the format in field guides. Rare bird review committees read the submitted accounts and voted on them. I recall one such description of a blue jay in southern California in about 1970. It was a page long, full of details of the intricate pattern of blue, black and white feathers that characterize this striking and instantly recognizable bird. I was so overwhelmed by all the words that I could not readily picture the bird from them.
In the last ten years we have moved into an era of digital cameras and smart-phone apps. Increasingly, we provide photos and recordings of the voices of the birds we find, and many birders scarcely want or need word descriptions. Those without access to or mastery of the technology can feel pressure to adopt it. I offer two personal examples.
On a recent Christmas Count I found what I took to be a red-naped sapsucker, quite rare in our area. I promptly reported it to a local forum for discussion of notable bird records, the Yolo birding WhatsApp group. Several people came looking for the bird. Some saw and corroborated what I had described, but others found and photographed what looked to be a hybrid sapsucker. I concluded that we had seen different birds; after all multiple sapsuckers may visit the same trees. However, the photographers thought there was only one bird, an unexciting hybrid, and lost interest.
And last summer near Woodland I heard the song of what I was sure was a yellow-throated warbler, an eastern bird, and duly reported it to the WhatsApp group. Without a recording of what I had heard, the group responded with two reasonable suggestions, to put a recording or voice memo app on my phone, and to play recordings to try to entice the bird to sing.
That was good advice, because circulation of photos and voice recordings on electronic media is fast becoming the standard for documenting occurrences of noteworthy birds. We have come full circle, to once again expecting tangible evidence of the bird, this time with twenty-first century tools at hand.
Michael Perrone, YAS Conservation Chair
View a photo of a Red-naped Sapsucker here: https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/337089181
Listen to a Yellow-throated Warbler: