Critter Geek

Most field guides to birds include range maps that give you an idea of where a bird species can be found during summer or winter. But birds often show up in unexpected places, and this is one way that birders get to claim a “rarity”. Many birders keep a life list of birds they’ve seen and identified; sometimes they also keep sublists, like “my California list” or “my Sonoma county list”. A “life bird” or “lifer” is one that’s completely new to your life list.

Through a network of phone message “bird boxes” and email groups like CalBirds (for California sightings), birders share information about where a rarity has been spotted so others can go chasing after it to add their own new lifer. (If this doesn’t sound fun or exciting yet, don’t worry, you’re just not quite hooked.)

A Ross’s Gull seen this weekend at the Salton Sea is big news. This bird typically winters along the artic ice, and spends summers even further north in the high artic. No one knows for sure why one of these gulls would be found in an inland sea in the middle of a desert, but birders are flocking to the area to get a glimpse and ponder the question.

I don’t do a lot of rarity chasing myself, but I really enjoy hearing about the human side of the chase. Sialia.com provides recent posts from California bird lists that you can browse in read-only form, without joining the list itself. Only thirty days worth of posts are kept on sialia.com. One of my favorite posts about the Ross’s Gull is this one from Bob Miller, which captures some of the fun spirit of the day (note that that link will quit working sometime near December 19). What could be better than a bird who sails right over the equipment left by birders who were scrambling to get to the other side of the jetty for a better view?

And if you’d like to join this particular chase, here’s most of the info you’ll need!