When Laurie and I went on the bird walks on the Outer Cape, I knew the most about birds of the six of us on the walk. I was the only one to bring a spotting scope. Although the ranger lead the walk, it was my spotting scope that found a lot of the birds for people to see. After the walk, a couple of the people were asking me how I knew so much about birds.
This sounds very arrogant, I know. But the truth is, except for me, the other six people were just beginner birders. Most of them were on vacation just looking for something to do. They were all quite impressed with seeing a cardinal. Everyone was very nice, and they were really impressed at seeing the Lesser Yellowlegs and Least Sandpipers (so was I, I love shorebirds).
However, if you fast forward to the following Thursday, I went to Charlestown Breachways mudflat. I saw a gull I did not recognize. I got some pictures of it, and posted it on a Facebook bird page. Within seconds, I found out the gull was a young Laughing Gull. The experts could tell right away exactly how old the gull was and the species.
However, the moderator of the Facebook page makes it clear, that only rare birds should be on the page for an ID. How does someone decide what is rare and what is common, I do not know. Obviously a song sparrow is common, but is a seaside sparrow? Chances are if you go to a sand dune you will see a Seaside Sparrow, but could the average beginner or even intermediate tell you what one looked like? Probably not. Well apparently, my young Laughing Gull was considered too common. He deleted my post and pictures within an hour of putting it up. No private message or explanation, it was just gone. My issue with this is, how can someone learn and become an expert, if their questions are being deleted. Seemed a bit bird snobbish to me.
Anyway, that is where I am at in my birding progression. I can look like a real genius to a newbie. On the flipside I still have so much to learn that an expert thinks I'm an amateur. I'm not terribly worried about where I fit in the birding community. The thing that I just can't believe is; there is SO MUCH to learn. I could read a bird ID book like Petersons Eastern Birds, remember every word, and still not tell you every bird.
I will give you an example that happened to me yesterday. I was again at Charlestown Breachway mudflat. There were barely any birds there. I saw maybe two dozen shorebirds all day. Sometimes there are hundreds. Of the very few shorebirds, I saw what I thought was a large sandpiper. It is the front bird in the left photo at the top. I looked at all the sandpipers in the bird book. You can easily see the grey coloration, the white eyebrow , and black bill. None of the sandpipers fit this description. When it flew, it clearly had black armpits. It was an unmistakable field mark. Again, nothing was said about the black arm pits in the book
It turns out that the bird was a non breeding Black Bellied Plover. A normal Black Bellied Plover is the right picture on the top. The picture is from the Smithsonian Birds of North America. Honestly, I have seen many adult breeding Black Bellied Plovers. I do not need a book to identify them. However, does that bird on the right look anything like the bird on the left? Hell no! I have three different bird ID books. None show a picture of a non breeding Black Bellied. Furthermore, they don't even mention the black armpits. Yet, expert birders knew instantly what this bird was. They also told me the black pits is a tell tale field mark.
If this happened with one species of bird, I can't imagine how many other species look different from one season to the next. I also don't know how many "field marks" are not even shown in my guidebooks. I have so much to learn it is overwhelming.
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