Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 07:23:37 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Parke H John Subject: Re: soaring cormorants MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Thank you Mr. Blom for your input and opinions. It was nice to finally get some constructive advice. I have never seen Anhingas soaring or otherwise. I have seen plenty of DC Cormorants, but never soaring. Now could you help me further? After looking in "Sibely," the one outstanding characteristic of these birds, that would leave me to believe they were Anhingas, was the very long neck and head. The necks were very narrow and very long. The necks narrowed to the head, which narrowed to the beak, which seemed to narrow to a point. The neck and head were very serpentine looking. They looked much longer and narrower than I would expect a cormorant's neck to look. Seemingly too narrow and smooth for a cormorant (as seen in "Sibely"). The neck, head and beak formed a very very long thin perfect triangle. Does this help with the identification? Thank for your time. Parke. Maryland Birds & Birding on 05/02/2001 12:28:36 AM Please respond to Maryland Birds & Birding To: MDOSPREY@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM cc: Subject: [MDOSPREY] soaring cormorants Well, someone has to throw themselves into the breach on this one and since my curmudgeon credentials are in need of polishing, I'll be the one. First, I have no opinion on what Parke John or anyone else saw. (The idea that I don't have opinions about everything is an obvious lie but since the sighting is not the point of this, we can pretend it is true.) There is a bigger issue than one or more Anhingas soaring over Cecil County, even at a record early date. Cormorants DO soar. Both as singles and in small kettles they can act just like Anhingas. I have seen it in Maryland, Florida, and Texas. The belief that cormorants do not soar is widely held but it is erroneous. When cormorants soar they can be decidedly confusing and look more like Anhingas than most people would believe. I have watched very good and experienced field observers flub this ID merely because the bird was soaring and the operating assumption is that cormorants don't. There are structural differences between soaring cormorants and Anhingas, especially tail, wings, and head and neck, but they are fairly obvious only if you have seen a lot of both. If you haven't, the differences are much harder to detect, especially if you assume that cormorants don't soar. The differences are a matter of degree and if you have never seen a cormorant soaring or a lot of Anhingas, it can be an extremely tricky call. I think we are overreporting Anhingas. They do occur in Maryland in small numbers and they have probably been overlooked in the past. But far too many of the recent records have been of high-flying distant birds and a significant component of the identification process and the decision has been based on the belief that cormorants don't soar. I think we are getting into a situation analogous to wintering Common Terns and Semipalmated Sandpipers along the East Coast. It started with a few reports, some of them by noted observers who were thought to be, if not infallible, at least reliable. What happens next is that less experienced observers see a few birds and because "they're around after all and its really no big deal," slap the Semi Sand or Common Tern on the birds. The effect is cumulative. Now that almost everybody is reporting them, everybody does report them and no one challenges the identifications because it has become received wisdom that they are there. The problem is that they weren't. In almost every case the ID was wrong. We now know that the occurrence of either bird is extraordinary. Yet confident identification continued for decades. The supposedly diagnostic shorter bill of Semi was used by people who knew little about the real criteria and reports multiplied until they were too numerous to question. In the case of Anhingas in Maryland the pattern is the same and we are fast approaching the time when it will not be considered that big a deal to see one. I think it is a big deal and ought to remain so. I think it I time to take a big step back and get much tougher on ourselves when it comes to Anhingas. They ought to be treated as a significant rarity and observation and documentation should be extremely rigorous. If I were forced to speculate I would argue that no more than one in three Anhinga reports for Maryland in the last decade are correct or are supported with persuasive documentation. I base that not on knowledge of any single report but on gut feeling. One thing that leads me to the conclusion is that Maryland appears to be emerging as a "hotspot" for vagrant Anhinga reports. There has been no comparable spike in reports from states east, west, and north of us, and that alone should give us pause. So much for my rant. I'm not challenging any single report or any individual's competence. But I am suggesting we slow down a bit and take another look at our assumptions until we determine the true status of the species in Maryland. Rick Eirik A.T. Blom 4318 Cowan Place Belcamp, Md 21017 410-575-6086 rick@blazie.net ===================================To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey =================================== ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================