BIRDS (and how to look at them)

[Lily Valley]

On 4/3/2018 at 2:46 PM, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

Yesterday morning. There is still one egg left so we're on PIP watch. 

I made my classes look at the Pittsburgh nests.  They were totally amazed.  Three baby eagles in two nests!!!   Still the usual suspects in my yard.  It's going to pour down rain all weekend, so little chance to get to the park for more birding.  Boo.  The NUMBER of cardinals, jays and doves that are visiting has grown and the crows are starting to take an interest.  My small feeders are getting drained by mid-day.  I need a reliable source for black oil sunflower seeds and bigger feeders. 

Luckily, the finches never go hungry thanks to that thistle seed feeder.  Thank you @Robin Of House Hill!

[Ice Queen]

4 minutes ago, Lily Valley said:

I made my classes look at the Pittsburgh nests.  They were totally amazed.  Three baby eagles in two nests!!!   Still the usual suspects in my yard.  It's going to pour down rain all weekend, so little chance to get to the park for more birding.  Boo.  The NUMBER of cardinals, jays and doves that are visiting has grown and the crows are starting to take an interest.  My small feeders are getting drained by mid-day.  I need a reliable source for black oil sunflower seeds and bigger feeders. 

Luckily, the finches never go hungry thanks to that thistle seed feeder.  Thank you @Robin Of House Hill!

These cams are wonderful teaching tools, aren't they?

Here's one of our peregrine falcon nests if you're interested. Hatching should begin around April 14. I'll warn you, though, that this crazy bird has a habit of eating her chicks and none of the experts knows why. 

http://www.aviary.org/PF-Nestcam1

[lady narcissa]

Apologies for interrupting this thread.  @Lily Valley can you please PM me? I tried to PM you but it said you can't receive messages.

/ends thread interruption

To make this on topic...there is an adorable red cardinal that lives on my street which blows my mind because I live in the middle of a large city and it just seems so out of place.  But I think one of the apartment buildings has a garden of sorts behind it and it must primarily live there and come out to the street front every so often.  It makes me so happy when I see it once or twice a year.

[Lily Valley]

19 hours ago, lady narcissa said:

Apologies for interrupting this thread.  @Lily Valley can you please PM me? I tried to PM you but it said you can't receive messages.

/ends thread interruption

To make this on topic...there is an adorable red cardinal that lives on my street which blows my mind because I live in the middle of a large city and it just seems so out of place.  But I think one of the apartment buildings has a garden of sorts behind it and it must primarily live there and come out to the street front every so often.  It makes me so happy when I see it once or twice a year.

Ah, my mailbox was full.  Fire away!  

On topic, the mockingbird have started guarding their nests.  I'm getting chased walking around!

[Xray the Enforcer]

Pine Warblers have started arriving!!!

[Xray the Enforcer]

For those who are getting into birding: local bird observatories will usually post migration forecasts based on current sightings, historical data, radar data, and weather reports. Here's a forecast that my friend helped write: https://cranecreekbirding.blogspot.com/2018/04/april-11-to-15-more-migrants-incoming.html 

Do a google search to see if someone is doing a migration forecast for your area.  

[Mindwalker]

I somehow got sucked into this thread. Fascinating! Although in my place (big city), I mostly just see crows (love them), pigeons (dont love'em), magpies, and on the river, ducks and six white swans (one of them giving my crazy little dog the evil eye, so we hastily retreated). Sparrows have become quite rare. Oh, and right across the river, in another city, we have a nice colony of those small green parrots named after Alexander the Great (decendants of ex-imprisoned birds-- neozoons??). I was wondering, any recommendations for birding in Central Europe, like field guides, identification websites and such?

[Xray the Enforcer]

I can ask my friends who are bird guides (e.g. people who lead bird walks and bird tours for a living) which ones they use. Mind, those books will be in English, so you'll probably have to either look for translations, or get in contact with a local bird guide or birding group to get the local vernacular names. Digging around, I've seen multiple glowing reviews of this field guide: https://www.amazon.com/Collins-Bird-Guide-Lars-Svensson/dp/0007268149 and here's a link to the app: http://collinsbirdguideapp.com/ 

BTW, I always recommend getting an actual physical book in addition to any apps -- it's much easier to flip through and start seeing similarities between birds within a family or genus, which will help your birding ID skills. 

[Hereward]

I saw my first Swallows of the year yesterday, which was nice. Also, I saw a mystery bird, and still cannot ID it. Normally, I would guess that my mind was playing tricks after a fleeting glimpse, but I followed this duck down the river for at least half a mile and had excellent and repeated views through by binoculars. I suppose it must have been an escaped exotic or a hybrid of some sort. Still, very frustrating.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Domesticated Mallards can be a giant PITA and, yeah, confound birders all the time. Can you give us some field marks of your mystery duck? 

This article concerns North American ducks, but it's a good overview of how duck variation and hybridization can really mess with identification. http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/domducks.htm

MOAR ducks: http://www.10000birds.com/manky-mallards-domestic-feral-or-just-plain-odd-mallards.htm

[Hereward]

Yes, it was about 25% bigger than a Mallard (easy to estimate owing to a heated encounter at one point), its body was dirty white or cream, with some brown wing feathers, its head was dark brown, bordering on black, and it had a dark blue bill of Mallard shape.

[Xray the Enforcer]

whoa. Blue bill? Which ducks in England/Yurp have blue bills? (Right now the only one I can think of for NA is the Ruddy Duck in breeding plumage.) 

[Hereward]

The Smew and the Tufted Duck have greyish blue bills, but they're both smaller than a Mallard. #baffled

[Hereward]

Hmm, could be a Smew... at a stretch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smew#/media/File:Smew_female_RWD5.jpg

[Xray the Enforcer]

it's probably some hellish combo of hybrid and leucistic, just to be extra-special annoying.  

[Hereward]

Must have been some party!

[Hereward]

1 hour ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

This article concerns North American ducks, but it's a good overview of how duck variation and hybridization can really mess with identification. http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/domducks.htm

MOAR ducks: http://www.10000birds.com/manky-mallards-domestic-feral-or-just-plain-odd-mallards.htm

I've just seen your edit. Thanks! It looked very, very much like the Khaki Campbell in the second link.

[Mr. X]

1 hour ago, Hereward said:

Yes, it was about 25% bigger than a Mallard (easy to estimate owing to a heated encounter at one point), its body was dirty white or cream, with some brown wing feathers, its head was dark brown, bordering on black, and it had a dark blue bill of Mallard shape.

You had a heated encounter with a duck? Do tell!

[Hereward]

What goes on on the riverbank, stays on the riverbank.

[Seli]

20 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

I somehow got sucked into this thread. Fascinating! Although in my place (big city), I mostly just see crows (love them), pigeons (dont love'em), magpies, and on the river, ducks and six white swans (one of them giving my crazy little dog the evil eye, so we hastily retreated). Sparrows have become quite rare. Oh, and right across the river, in another city, we have a nice colony of those small green parrots named after Alexander the Great (decendants of ex-imprisoned birds-- neozoons??). I was wondering, any recommendations for birding in Central Europe, like field guides, identification websites and such?

I tend to use paper books, for the reasons Xray already mentioned and because I grew up with them. I do prefer particular lay-outs and the presence of distribution maps in my guides, but that is personal taste.

The aforementioned Lars Svensson has a Dutch edition, which I believe is nice. Another one I have here is by Detlef Singer, which might be translated in other languages as well (Originally German).