Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 11:52:36 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Jed Kusterer Subject: Re: Greater White-fronted Goose Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Disposition: inline Bob, Thanks for your comments. It is true, as you said, that a field guide is only a guide and can't cover all plumages and variations. Observers need to accumulate field experience and be willing to seek the help of more experienced observers without feeling intimidated or afraid of being found in error. Ultimately responsibility for sightings is with the birder and not the book. However, it is also true that tremendous improvements in field guides (and optics) over the last decades, have led to more and more accurate amateur IDs. Also, studies have suggested that the addition or removal of rare species or unusual plumage illustrations from the most widely used field guides result in more or fewer "sightings" of those species. Most people in the field on any given day making sightings are not total experts. So, for better or worse, the quality of field guides used plays a very important role in the accuracy of overall reportings for the state of Maryland. The better they communicate likely pitfalls in IDing at the intermediate level, the more accurate our state reportings will be. Especially vulnerable to mistaken sightings are those species that are rare enough so they are not very familiar to most observers in a state, but common enough that they are not reviewed by the state records committee. I am guessing that Sibley's choice to illustrate the variable domestic goose in a plumage similair to the GWFG was deliberate. To the extent that his guide becomes widely used, it is likely that observers seeing their 1st or 2nd GWFG (probably a large number in the East) will be less likely to mistake it or to rely on the insufficient field marks such as: orange legs and bill, white face, etc. implied by superficial perusals of other field guides. Before Sibley, there was only a small textual note in Nat. Geo. about variability and an illustration of the domestic goose in the more common, but unmistakable white plumage. Sibley's raising the "profile" of this less common plumage in domestic geese may actually reduce the number of GWFG reported in error in many eastern states, including MD. That's my 2 cents. Thanks for reading. Regards, Jed Marc ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================