Spotting rare species is a feather in the cap for many birdwatchers. But they might need to give their binoculars a clean: people who describe themselves as expert birders are more likely to misidentify common birds as rare and exotic species than those who are more modest about their knowledge.
Julia Schroeder of Imperial College London and her colleagues wanted to check the reliability of wildlife observations produced by citizen science projects. They asked nearly 2700 amateur ornithologists in the UK to identify pictures and drawings of six common species, including the robin, house sparrow and starling.
They were surprised by the results: dozens of self-described experts claimed that some of the common British species depicted were birds only seen in other parts of the world. One confused a starling with the Asian brown flycatcher, more usually found in the Himalayas. Another said a greenfinch was a yellow bunting, which is a rare sight even in its native Japan.
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Although聽the experts did get more answers right overall than people who claimed no expertise, they were much more likely to spot a rarity or a species that has never been reported in Britain among the images. Both the survey title and the introductory text said it was a test to identify common British birds.
Stumped by starlings
People who were more modest about their expertise were more inclined to say they didn鈥檛 know a particular species, but self-reported experts would 鈥渃ome up with bizarre things鈥�, Schroeder says.
Pictures of starlings prompted the most mistakes 鈥� 44 per cent of these images weren鈥檛 identified correctly.
One of the mistaken species 鈥� the Scottish crossbill 鈥� can鈥檛 even be identified from pictures alone. A birdwatcher would need to hear its distinctive call to know for sure that it wasn鈥檛 the more widespread common crossbill.
Schroeder says she doesn鈥檛 know if the experts鈥� mistakes were due to over-confidence, or 鈥渨anting to show off鈥�. She says the results should 鈥渞aise a flag鈥� about observations in some citizen science projects.
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