[cobirds] Valmont Rez, Boulder County, Dec. 25

Hello, Birders. Hannah Floyd and I birded the Valmont Reservoir complex, Boulder County, late yesterday afternoon, Christmas Day, Fri., Dec. 25. The common loon, first reported, I believe, by Bill Kaempfer on the Boulder CBC (Dec. 20), was still there. The long-present tundra swan was there, too. Nice to see a couple bald eagles and a prairie falcon. Mergansers galore. A bit after 3pm, a Corvus fly-in featured a Chihuahuan raven, or, perhaps I should say, what I consider to be a Chihuahuan raven.

I appreciate the caution that many, including Colorado's superb eBird reviewers, apply to Chihuahuan raven ID. I suspect our detection of the raven will be invalidated by the reviewers--and I have no problem with that. I just wish that invalidated records like this one (ID not disproven, just uncertain) remained in the public database, prominently flagged as rejected/invalidated--so that we can at least know what might be out there.

This is simply a point on which eBird and I are in disagreement. It's okay to disagree. I think eBird is magnificent, and, as we start to think about New Years resolutions for 2016, I propose the following: How about if all of us submit at least one eBird checklist per day for each day of 2016. eBird is that great. eBird is that important.

Here's our eBird checklist from yesterday:

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S26450225

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder County

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