[mou] (no subject)

[Alt, Mark]

Spending a day with Lars Jonnson in the field was a big wake-up call for
me. We went to La Crosse, WI and spotted a Glaucous-winged Gull, but
what we spent time on (2 hours) was detailing the pattern of primary
windows (white spots) on Herring Gulls. After sketching and cataloguing
the 200 Herring Gulls in range of view, Lars proceeded to tell us that
with all likelihood, these birds were from the St Lawrence Seaway, these
were from the Midwest, and these may have their origins in the north
Atlantic, it was time well spent with one of the world's experts on
gulls, but the lesson was that Lars knew this stuff because he spent
time looking at it, studying it and thinking about it. He understood the
irregularity and variability in what was for me up to that time - a
flock of gulls. 
Bob Duncan, a great birder out of Florida, was coaching me on Vireos one
day. "Check every Red-eye for the Black Whiskers", and when I asked him
how many Red-eyes he might tally in a year, he guessed 2-3 thousand. How
many Black-Whiskered Vireos do you get in a year? He said he might get 1
every 3rd or fourth year, adding that if I didn't check all the
Red-eyes, I would never get any of the others. 
I appreciate the mad skills of a Kim Eckert, Mike Hendrickson, Kim Risen
who can discern ambivalent field marks at a great distance in a mixed
flock of birds, and I am only scared a little bit at the Frank
Nicolleti's of the world who can call out birds at an accuracy level and
scale that tires me to talk of it, so for myself, so what I do for my
own skills is I play warbler and sparrow songs every spring, focusing on
the voices of birds rather than the exact phrasing (Chestnut Sideds
still sound like Yellow till I hear a bunch of them), and I chase down a
sighting of every bird I hear sing ( I wear boots a lot). In the bog in
early spring, this means craning my neck and moving around a lot to pick
Blackburnians giving a partial call out from Bay-Breasteds and Cape
May's. This means every Red-eyed Vireo can be a Philadelphia. Call notes
of sparrows are tough, but if you can get them down, you can find a lot
more Harris's in fall. I wish I had some of the time back that I have
spent studying the songs of Savannah Sparrows across the USA, they seem
to have more variability in plumage and song than anything else I have
run into, but wait a minute, I take that back. Maybe I can match Lars
for Savannah Sparrows.... There is always hope. Good birding.



Mark Alt
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
Project Resources Group
Best Buy Co., Inc.