[CT Birds] Louisiana waterthrush in Washington, CT

[Roy Harvey]

David asked a good question, and Luke provided the short answer.  Now
I will try to fill in some background.

As Luke said, Louisiana Waterthrush is on the common birds list:
http://www.ctbirding.org/commonbirds.htm
As such it is not generally considered for inclusion in the daily
report, which is (in theory) a "rare" bird report.

Anyone could  make an excellent argument for including such early
sightings on the daily report.  At one time there was serious
discussion of making the common birds list seasonal, AND adding a
geographic split to reflect the differences in rarity between coastal
and inland areas.  The problem isn't coming up with ideas such as
those for improving the daily report, I can think of lots of ways it
could be better.  The problem is trying to keep the process doable. 
The common birds list, though flawed and somewhat arbitrary, helps
keep things simple enough to (almost) make the job manageable.  At
this point the only sort of change I expect to the list is to add
more species, such as Red-breasted Nuthatch or Brown Creeper, that
add bulk to the daily report without adding much information.

I used to do a section of Migration Notes down at the bottom, as you
can see in these examples from last year:

http://lists.ctbirding.org/pipermail/ctdailyreport_lists.ctbirding.org/2007-April/000094.html
http://lists.ctbirding.org/pipermail/ctdailyreport_lists.ctbirding.org/2007-May/000108.html

But my memory of last spring was that I spent almost as much time
compiling the migration notes as I did the daily report.  Look at the
second item above from May 1 and you might get an idea why.  When I
contemplate going through that again this spring, well I just don't
see myself doing it, particularly since most of the sightings that go
into the daily report are available to everyone on CTBirds.

So I decided not to do migration notes any longer because I just
don't want to spend the time.  I made a partial exception last night
for the Louisiana, since it was the first report of a warbler species
that simply does not hang around into the winter.  I might do that
sort of thing again as the spirit moves me, just don't count on it.

On another note, I will be away on business next week so there won't
be a daily report from Monday, 4/14 through at least Friday 4/18. 
Thankfully there will still be CTBirds for those who need
information.

Good birding!

Roy Harvey
Beacon Falls, CT