Registration starts today! I hope to see many of you there, at my talks and in the field. There’s no better time to come to southeast Arizona!

Neotropic Cormorant is an uncommon species right here in Tucson, and the presence of a young bird at Lakeside Park has been a nice opportunity for visiting birders and locals alike. In life, the bird doesn’t usually pose many identification difficulties, but photographs, with their notorious potential for misrepresentation, can be more difficult; and recently “posted” images of the Lakeside Park bird have been occasion for some discussion.

What I’ve most enjoyed about the conversation so far has been its recapitulation of the historical development of our understanding of this species’ field identification. Specifically, the shape of the back and scapular feathers–pointed on this species, round on Double-crested–has been discovered and rediscovered over and over in the years since the species was first described. An instructive example among many of how the “old” books are still worth going back to–again and again.