[cobirds] Counting a bird neither seen nor heard? Custer County

There are certain rules I've made for myself when using Merlin.  First, if it's a bird call I'm unfamiliar with or the bird's new for the area I'm in, I never put it on the list unless I've actually seen it.  Second, even if it's a familiar bird and belongs in the area, I never put it on the list unless I've heard it and can recognize the sound.  (Because Merlin often hears things that I don't think are there.)

So that brings me to a birding day in the spruce-fir forest above Westcliffe.  Merlin told me 20 times that it was hearing a Golden-crowned Kinglet.  Well, now that I'm 71, GCKI's are above my hearing range, so I'm never going to hear one again.  I searched for an hour for that bird.  I'd stand in one place and watch the dots going by on the screen, turning different directions until I found where the dots were biggest, then walk 20 feet and do it again, looking in vain up to the tops of those fir trees.  I got so that I knew by looking at the screen when it was going to say "Golden-crowned Kinglet" 2 seconds before it flashed yellow. That series of dots high up on the screen became very familiar to me.  When I played it back I still couldn't hear it.  But when I compared it to the sonagrams that Merlin provides, it looked the same.  Never did see the bird, but after watching that sonagram for an hour and comparing it, and being told over and over and over what it was, I finally broke my rule and counted it.   And although I know that those checking uncommon birds for eBird hate more than anything when they see the 3 words "Confirmed by Merlin",  well . . .

Mary Kay Waddington

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