All,
The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) has begun and runs from today through Monday, February 20. This is typicallythe time that we get the highest concentration of false and/or poorly-documented reports of rarities in eBird out of the whole year because of the volume of new birders that sign up for eBird just for the GBBC. The rarity reports have already started coming in, of courseciting Merlin Sound ID as documentation
Please take all rarity reports over the next four days that a) are from unknown observers, b) new birds not previously known, c) provide poor or little documentation, and/or d) are from backyards(!) with a grain of salt. Of course some rarity reports may be valid, so we will follow-up with GBBC observers at our discretion and should any reports of new and *notable* birds pan out we will provide appropriate notification. Since the GBBC is for some reason not actually limited to backyards, if you see weird reports coming in this weekend from areas that you frequent in the county, please feel free to send to me and I'll try to look into it if I agree it seems out of place. I do not, however, need reports of Bewick's Wrens at Huntington Central Park, which are a problem that will seemingly never go away...

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Ryan Winkleman
Rancho Santa Margarita