BIRDS -- even more bird mafia discussion

[Mr. X]

Pileateds are enormous and awesome.

First one I ever saw was in Vermont while we were driving away from Hill Farmstead Brewery. I tweeted about the beer run + woodpecker sighting later and got a reply from the Hill Farmstead account along the lines of "Yes! I love that pileated!"

Woodpeckers are one of my favorite bird families. Always delighted to see any of them. 

[TheLastWolf]

There's a Eurasian Hoopoe nesting in an abandoned postbox in my neighborhood! 

They're Israel's national birds IIRC... 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Do you believe in signs?  Do you believe in omens?  Do you believe in the promise of spring?  Do you love Ravens (Corvus corvax)?  

The answer for all of those for me is an affirmative and enthusiastic YES.  And, though I don’t know what this means for my owl box (of which I still have hopes), it appears that we have a NESTING PAIR OF RAVENS IN A LARGE TREE ON THE OTHER END OF OUR PROPERTY.  I am squeeing.  BABY RAVEN WATCH BEGINS IN 5-8 WEEKS.  Eeeeeeee!!!!!!!

[Xray the Enforcer]

YESSSSSSSSSSS

Another sign of awesome: Mr. X got his lifer Barn Owl and lifer Canvasback today! 

[A True Kaniggit]

2 hours ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

YESSSSSSSSSSS

Another sign of awesome: Mr. X got his lifer Barn Owl and lifer Canvasback today! 

Really? Very good. Owl did that happen?

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1 hour ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

BABY RAVEN WATCH 2021!!!!! ALL IN!!!!

Da burdz have been on the feeder and scattering seeds on the ground, constantly. Mourning doves and some of the finches will eat off the ground, but it’s more consistently squirrels. Uh, hawk / raven food. Usually. If I see the hawks or ravens, I’ll keep the feeder away so the songbirds aren’t bait...unless I see squirrels. Cute, but fair game.

Hawks and ravens have to eat too.  But I'm really hoping for improved rodent control.  Last year the chipmunks were like Chip & Dale bold (and by that I mean the Disney kind).

[Mr. X]

23 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Really? Very good. Owl did that happen?

Welp, we were at a refuge with owl boxes and we looked inside the owl box* and the owl inside looked back at me.

*from a good distance -- when I say "looked inside," I mean "pointed the scope at the opening of the box and zoomed in all the way."

[lady narcissa]

I see that it is quite a common bird so not very exciting for hard core bird watchers...but today I spotted and identified a red winged blackbird.  You can imagine that living in the center of a very large city - even though they are here - I rarely see any birds outside of the usual crows, pigeons, seagulls, and little brown birds that are everywhere.  There is a cardinal couple in my neighborhood but I literally only spot them once a year even though I can hear them at other times.  The most exotic bird spotting I generally can do is during migration season when I see dead birds at the foot of skyscrapers on my walk to work in the morning.  ( I still remember this gorgeous apple green bird I saw one morning a couple of years ago.... )  Anyway these past few weeks I have been hearing this new-to-me bird sound and have caught a glimpse of some black birds that looked to have red and yellow in their wing area.  Today I walked past a tree and heard that sound again and I looked up and there is was just sitting in the tree and it didn't fly away when I got closer to get a better look.  And then figured out what it was when I got home.  I feel like I would have noticed these before if they were regulars so I am thinking they must be new to the neighborhood.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Red-winged Blackbirds are in fact a favorite among birders of all kinds! Everyone gets excited when they move back in during springtime. Keep an eye out for the females -- they are the same size and shape as the males, but instead of black with the red/yellow epaulets they are a rich brown all over with streaks and apricot/peachy cheeks. Love them!!!

[Wilbur]

10 hours ago, lady narcissa said:

...and little brown birds that are everywhere...

Don't sleep on the LBBs.  Learning to discriminate between the many (and correctly identify the various) LBBs has its own pleasures!

[TheLastWolf]

Any birder/lover heard of a fellow countryman of mine, Dr Salim Ali (Ornithologist)? 

@Xray the Enforcer

 

[Elder Sister]

We have pileated woodpeckers, as well as downy woodpeckers and red cockaded woodpeckers, and they are honestly my favorites.  They're small and have little white spots all over their backs.  They're also very secretive, like they're up to no good, but I think they're just very focused. 

We had a snowy owl here over the winter - it was about 15 miles north of me in a field and caused all manner of wonderment and excitement.  I didn't get to see it, but I heard about it which was almost as good.

[lady narcissa]

I'm glad to hear that red winged blackbirds are exciting to see even for more seasoned birders.  I for sure have not noticed any females.  Just males.

In my neighborhood cardinal news....I did hear him today. I was walking home, I could hear it, it was coming from that tree at the end of the block...would it still be there when I passed????  Would I see it?  I got halfway there and he stopped and took flight and flew right above me...well 20 feet above me but I could see the blur of red as he sped past.  Ah well.

On 4/6/2021 at 10:42 AM, Wilbur said:

Don't sleep on the LBBs.  Learning to discriminate between the many (and correctly identify the various) LBBs has its own pleasures!

There were 10 on my loggia when I got home and I stared my hardest at them and then looked at pictures...and I am not good with shades of beige and brown.  I need some primary colors to see differences.  I love these little birds but they are tough nuts to crack.

[Wilbur]

1 hour ago, lady narcissa said:

...I stared my hardest at them and then looked at pictures...and I am not good with shades of beige and brown.  I need some primary colors to see differences.  I love these little birds but they are tough nuts to crack.

The local eBird reviewer sends me regular love notes to indicate that the bird I have photographed and identified as a Song Sparrow is actually a Lincoln's Sparrow or some such nearly-indistinguishably different bird.

Monday it was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, but with black legs that I was sure was a Hutton's Vireo, particularly since the local Audubon Chapter rep was with me, and she also thought it was an HV.  Nope - corrective missive duly received this morning, urging me to correct my error.

Hutton's Vireo vs Ruby-Crowned Kinglet - well, nuts.

[Xray the Enforcer]

8 hours ago, Wilbur said:

The local eBird reviewer sends me regular love notes to indicate that the bird I have photographed and identified as a Song Sparrow is actually a Lincoln's Sparrow or some such nearly-indistinguishably different bird.

Monday it was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, but with black legs that I was sure was a Hutton's Vireo, particularly since the local Audubon Chapter rep was with me, and she also thought it was an HV.  Nope - corrective missive duly received this morning, urging me to correct my error.

Hutton's Vireo vs Ruby-Crowned Kinglet - well, nuts.

I have definitely gotten a couple of those emails. FWIW, I almost never use leg color as a field mark because it's unreliable in most species and depends on age of the bird, lighting conditions, all kinds of things.

For those in the thread who are newer to birding, here's how I would differentiate between those two birds -- and this is a difficult ID! I know lots of people who get stumped by these two birds all the time! I have personally been stumped by these two birds!

Things that I would look at to distinguish between HV and RCK: 
First thing I'd look at is patterning on the wing coverts -- with HV, you only really see the white wing bars; with RCK, it looks like "dark, white, black." It's that bottom black bar that to me really stands out in the field.

Second thing I'd look at is shape and placement of the white around the eyes. In HV, it's concentrated on the bottom of eye and toward the back. In the RCK, it's in the front and back of the eye, but nothing at all along the bottom. 

Third thing, bill shape. Notice HV has thicker, shorter bill, while RCK has a longer, thinner one. I'd ask myself "is the bill about as thick as the diameter of the bird's eye, or is it thinner than the diameter of the bird's eye?" 

[Xray the Enforcer]

On 4/6/2021 at 12:01 PM, TheLastWolf said:

Any birder/lover heard of a fellow countryman of mine, Dr Salim Ali (Ornithologist)? 

@Xray the Enforcer

 

I had not -- thank you for flagging this.  

[TheLastWolf]

18 hours ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

I had not -- thank you for flagging this.  

Sure. He was a great man. 

[Fragile Bird]

What damn bird sings at 2:00 am?

I’m used to being woken before dawn, but something very noisy has been singing away between 1 and 3 am.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Probably a Northern Mockingbird. They are well-known night-singers, especially during breeding season. 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

7 hours ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

Probably a Northern Mockingbird. They are well-known night-singers, especially during breeding season. 

Once upon a time, in a Virginia far far away, my parents slept with their windows open in the spring and summer.  Every morning at 6 am, the alarm would go off, and up my parents would get up for work.  Outside their window was a lovely dogwood tree with beautiful white flowers in the spring and delicious red berries in the fall.  In that dogwood tree there was a mockingbird that listened every morning to the sound of that alarm clock.  That mockingbird, being itself, practiced long and hard and mastered the sound of that alarm.  Full of pride in its accomplishment, it started trilling forth its song at ever earlier hours, in competition with the clock.  This is how, one morning at 2 am, my father was seen holding the (indoor) cat at the window saying “Toby, I will buy you a steak if you get it.”    

Moral of the story:  Sleep with your windows shut.  A lesson my parents learned after the purchase of a white noise machine.