The Uncommon Redpolls
By MIKE POWERS AND MIYOKO CHU
eBird brings attention to rare sighting
 

Cathie Ray's photo turned up a rare Common Redpoll (left) and Pine Siskin (right).

Puzzled, Cathie looked in her field guide and decided the birds must be Common Redpolls-but they were about 1,500 miles away from their summer range in arctic Canada and Alaska. After a friend confirmed the identification, she and Cody recorded their sighting using eBird, an online checklist program that had been released for testing by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Audubon.

Each time an unusual report like Cathie's and Cody's is submitted to eBird, it is flagged automatically. State and provincial eBird editors then review it individually. The program recognizes unusual sightings if the bird is out of its normal range or the number of birds reported exceeds a predetermined limit.

A redpoll along the southern Oregon coast would be noteworthy at any time of year, but this midsummer record was exceptional. "Suffice it to say that summer records are basically unheard of," says Dave Lauten, the eBird editor for Oregon.

The redpolls at Cathie's feeder were the first ones ever reported from Coos County, Oregon, and the first to be reported in Oregon in July, according to Alan Contreras, coeditor of Birds of Oregon: A General Reference.

Through their chance encounter with the redpolls, Cathie and Cody demonstrated that eBird can play a valuable role in gathering noteworthy observations for official state bird records committees. Their photographs and description of the birds were submitted to the Oregon Bird Records Committee after eBird flagged their observation.

Additionally, their extraordinary record is now easily accessible by birders, amateur naturalists, casual record-keepers, and students visiting the eBird web site by clicking here. Anyone interested in redpoll sightings can find out where and when redpolls have been seen across the continent. They can even use maps, graphs, and other eBird tools to look for trends.

Cathie's and Cody's experience illustrates that anyone might discover an unusual bird. "Our exciting experience really hooked us and made us into two new avid bird watchers," Cathie says.