Pat O'Malley wrote:
>
> Glen White raises an interesting question.
>
> According to Glen and most people involved in the ticking debate, we cannot
> count birds we have 'only heard'. Yet we can count birds we have 'only
> seen'. I wonder why? Call is often a better identifyer than sight. For some
> species call is the only reliable identifying feature in the field. Calls
> are often prettier than plumages. Overall, the difficulty of hearing the
> call of birds probably is much the same as that of seeing them - although
> the distributions of difficulty in registering calls vs sightings differ
> by species. And while calls can vary within the species, so can plumage. It
> all seems a rather arbitrary privileging of sight - especially when species
> are increasingly differentiated on the basis of DNA*.
>
> Why don't 'we' (not me actually, and presumably not sight or hearing
> impaired birders) start ticking only those birds we have seen AND heard?
>
> Personally I record birds I've seen, birds I've heard, and even dead birds
> - noting their 'status' in my records. I differentiate between birds I've
> scoped and studied well and those I've only glimpsed - whose 'ticks' I
> don't give as much weight as those for birds I've seen three or more times
> and in different states. Since its not a competition (is it?), since I want
> to record my varied experience of birds, and since no-one's tally of ticks
> is a matter of scientific importance, who cares?
>
> Incidentally, I was just as excited finding a beachcast Sooty Tern [bright
> and shiny, but admittedly not calling] at Busselton WA last week, as I was
> to see my first - live, visible and calling - Red Winged Fairy Wren on the
> same day.
>
> Pat
One reason for going with sight rather than sound is the widespread
practice of mimicry in the avian world.
In the absense of mimicry, you would have to have a very finely tuned
ear to pick the difference between a range of species. The majority of
terrestrial birds on the other hand are relatively easily distinguished
by sight - size, shape, colour, behaviour - a lot more diagnostic detail
than you can pick up by sound.
Finally, many birds are silent for large periods of time, whereas they
are potentially visible all the time during daylight hours.
Regards, Laurie.
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