kryptonkay got this interesting shot at 4:05 p.m. today:
It’s pretty clear, after some study, that it’s a female House Sparrow. But the posture and the camera angle are deceptive; it looks like a pretty unusual bird. This led to a number of wrong guesses being entered, such that by the time I came along and entered my own guess, it had been placed in status ‘Disputed’.
My ID of House Sparrow was enough to flip it to that ID, which is handy, because I’ve been wondering just what it takes to go from disputed to ID’d.
Before my vote the tally was like this:
Dark-eyed Junco: 1
Pygmy Nuthatch: 2
House Sparrow: 5
After my vote, it was:
Dark-eyed Junco: 1
Pygmy Nuthatch: 2
House Sparrow: 6
As most of us have probably noticed, two votes to one is sufficient to get a bird with only three votes classified as whatever got the two votes. And the evidence of this photo seems to indicate that the same principle works with larger numbers, too, leading me to believe that this is the general rule: A bird is given an ID if at least 2/3 of the votes cast agree on a particular species.
I took a look at some of the more notorious shots currently in ‘Disputed’ status, to see what it will take to get them classified “properly” (according to my personal definition). For instance, there’s this photo by bluebean, which I believe (for reasons I explained in more detail in Well, Hello Little Lady) to be a female Western Tanager:
Currently the vote tally for this one is:
Western Tanager: 10
Lesser Goldfinch: 4
Bullock’s Oriole: 3
American Goldfinch: 1
So, to get the image classified as Western Tanager would require six more votes for that, with no dissenting votes (because there currently are eight non-tanager votes, and we need to double that). I guess I won’t hold my breath for that; there’s probably a better chance of getting another, clearer shot of the bird if we want Western Tanager to be officially in the game. (Wouldn’t a shot of a male be awesome?)
Then there’s this photo by harpsichordgal, which I talked about in Is That a Hooded Oriole?
Currently its vote total is like this:
Hooded Oriole: 4
Black-headed Grosbeak: 4
Evening Grosbeak: 1
So to get that officially ID’d as the game’s first Hooded Oriole would require (again) six more votes for that, with no dissenting votes. Sigh. Probably not going to happen anytime soon.
Next up are these two shots, from the first (and so far only) appearance of the Lazuli Bunting, back on the morning of May 9. Both of these were by kryptonkay:
The vote tally on the first one is:
Lazuli Bunting: 5
Black-headed Grosbeak: 4
That means to switch that ID to Lazuli Bunting would require three more votes for that, with no dissenting votes.
The vote tally on the second image is currently:
Lazuli Bunting: 6
Black-headed Grosbeak: 3
Blue-headed Vireo: 1
That means to switch that ID to Lazuli Bunting would require two more votes for that, with no dissenting votes.
I really hope we can get one or both of those switched to Lazuli Bunting, for the following reasons:
- That first shot was the first appearance of the bird in the system. It would be nice to have it properly classified.
- The second shot is arguably the clearest one taken of the bird during his appearance.
- Most importantly, of the other seven shots of the bird that were taken that day, and that were successfully ID’d as Lazuli Bunting, none were taken by kryptonkay. That’s not fair. She seriously deserves to have that bird in her list of photographed species.
If you haven’t entered a vote yet for one of these disputed photos, I encourage you to do so now. Well, as long as you’re willing to vote the right way. Otherwise, I encourage you not to bother. 🙂 Thanks!
Update: And now, thanks to some help from users lal and vireo, the second of those has been flipped to Lazuli Bunting. Yay! All is right with the world.