To Chase or not to Chase

This is a question "competitive" birders like myself face rather often. If a life bird is twenty minutes from my house, I will usually jump on it as soon as I can get my hands on the wheel of a car. However, if a state bird is an hour away, I will usually pass knowing it's likely not worth it. However, recently I have been caught in bit of pickle. About thirty minutes from where I live, there is what a decent number of people are calling a hatch year female Tufted Duck. For those of you who don't know, this a rare visitor from Eurasia. Although I saw about one hundred of them in London a couple of years ago, I am more passionate about my ABA life list than my schoolwork. This duck may or may not be Tufted. A few days ago I told myself I was going to see this duck. Then, I was told it was a scaup species, and I gave up. Now it's back...and people are re-re-re thinking it. At this point, I think I'm just going to go ahead and see it in case it does turn out to be a Tufted Duck. If it doesn't...oh well, I've been through worse rarity losses, but that's a story for another day. I'll post an update in my daily post tomorrow. Tomorrow will also be the first bird of the week! More on that coming up!

Until then, happy birding!

- Mike

Sorry, no photo! Hopefully I'll get one to post soon.