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The falcon actually returned yesterday (maybe looking for the rest of it's kill). The techs at the lek got zoomed-in video, and I just got a few screen shots. Definitely feel better about Gyrfalcon with these pics. vlcsnap-2014-03-15-20h48m13s53 on Flickr  vlcsnap-2014-03-15-20h48m38s25 on Flickr  vlcsnap-2014-03-15-20h46m42s182 on Flickr  vlcsnap-2014-03-15-20h45m17s59 on Flickr We didn't go out this morning, but I'm going tomorrow. It wouldn't be a lifer, but I'm going to be pretty stoked if it comes in when I actually have my camera ready.
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Mar 16, 2014 05:24
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I'm pretty ignorant about birding/wildlife in the south, but I'm going to be visiting Austin, TX later this week and am debating whether to take my camera gear. Is there anything really worth seeing within day-trip range of the city this time of year?
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Mar 18, 2014 19:44
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I've never been to Austin but: This map of Bird hotspots near Austin lead me to the site for Hornby Bend Bird Observatory which seems to suggest that now is good migration time.
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Mar 18, 2014 21:50
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Thanks, Pablo. If I can figure out a way to get a Sigma 120-300 in my carry-on, I'll check that out.
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Mar 19, 2014 02:51
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Monday-Tuesday night, owling: 3 Ural Owls. Today: 1 Long-eared, 1 Eagle Owl. Tengmalms - the most common owl around here - are completely quiet.
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Mar 19, 2014 22:51
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Bird Gurus, need some help. I'm in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (what-what), and I have my camera with me as usual. Been taking pics of birds that pass by wherever I am, but am having trouble identifying this one. I ran the details I could pick out through iBird, and none of them seem to match what I'm seeing here. Any ideas?   e: It's a Magnificent Frigatebird, isn't it? Count Freebasie fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Mar 21, 2014 |
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Mar 21, 2014 00:19
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Count Freebasie posted:Bird Gurus, need some help. Yep. They're awesome and appropriately named.
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Mar 21, 2014 05:41
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Okay, this poo poo is hard. Caught two pictures of this bird (Puerto Vallarta, Mexico) and the closest guess I can figure is a Gray-crowned Yellowthroat, but according to iBird there are like 35 birds here with yellow bellies. In the third pic, is that a juvenile of the same type or a different bird altogether? I hate to keep hounding everyone here, but this is way harder to identify stuff than I thought. Just trying to learn    
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Mar 21, 2014 16:42
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Count Freebasie posted:Okay, this poo poo is hard. Caught two pictures of this bird (Puerto Vallarta, Mexico) and the closest guess I can figure is a Gray-crowned Yellowthroat, but according to iBird there are like 35 birds here with yellow bellies. In the third pic, is that a juvenile of the same type or a different bird altogether? First 2 are some sort of Kingbird (Tropical/Couches/Cassins/Western or some other species). The third one is something different. Can't really tell how big it is, but maybe a warbler, or if it is bigger bigger, either a tanager or some sort of oriole relative.
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Mar 21, 2014 16:58
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Took some shots today and was pretty stoked to get some good ones of this Brown Pelican: 
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Mar 22, 2014 04:13
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Count Freebasie posted:Okay, this poo poo is hard. Caught two pictures of this bird (Puerto Vallarta, Mexico) and the closest guess I can figure is a Gray-crowned Yellowthroat, but according to iBird there are like 35 birds here with yellow bellies. In the third pic, is that a juvenile of the same type or a different bird altogether? The Kingbird struck me as a Cassin's based on the dark gray head and the relatively small size of the head and bill. All four of those species are pretty tough to ID with certainty though. Second bird is a mystery for me as well.
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Mar 22, 2014 04:27
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Managed to see a Osprey yesterday. I cycled to a wildlife sanctuary in Perthshire, Scotland and the minute I sat down in the viewing shed a male Osprey turned up and started intimidating some buzzards. There are only about 200 Ospreys who summer in Britain so I felt pretty lucky. I spent about an hour watching him circling the loch and screeching like a lunatic.
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Mar 25, 2014 15:47
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BeastOfExmoor posted:The Kingbird struck me as a Cassin's based on the dark gray head and the relatively small size of the head and bill. All four of those species are pretty tough to ID with certainty though. The second bird is horrible. It has a jizz of a small bird, so I think it's a warbler. Uniform color. Has pale legs, greyish bill and maybe even some sort of retrice markings in secondaries/tertiaries (pale tips). It lacks obvious dark markings in the face. The back is greenish, underside yellowish, but the throat's yellow color might also come from pollen. If this was an ID competition I would probably just say it's a Yellow or Wilson's Warbler (I have a better gut feeling about Yellow, but that's definitely not an ID I would want to use!) and wait for the competition keeper to tell the correct answer. But as it is, I just say this is most likely a warbler sp. El Perkele fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Mar 25, 2014 |
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Mar 25, 2014 21:59
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Doing a lot better now between iBird and buying the Stokes guide. Got a bunch of good stuff today including a Redhead, Ring-necked duck, Brown-headed cowbird, etc., but between iBird and Stokes, I can't figure out what these two are. This was outside of Philadelphia, by the way. Any guesses?:  
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Apr 7, 2014 18:07
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The first one's an American Coot, and the second one's a scruffy-looking Grebe, gonna say a Horned Grebe, maybe mid molt.
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Apr 7, 2014 18:17
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Count Freebasie posted:Doing a lot better now between iBird and buying the Stokes guide. Got a bunch of good stuff today including a Redhead, Ring-necked duck, Brown-headed cowbird, etc., but between iBird and Stokes, I can't figure out what these two are. Top one is an American Coot and the second is very likely a Horned Grebe. E: And simulpost.
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Apr 7, 2014 18:18
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Thanks, both of you.
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Apr 7, 2014 21:20
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A pair of American Kestrels has made my urban neighborhood their territory and I see them every day, and I'm 99% sure I know where they're nesting. I wish I had a good zoom camera, because I can't get any good pictures of them 5 stories up
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Apr 7, 2014 22:17
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What a horrible birding winter. Almost no owls and not much else either. Now that the birds are migrating back it's awesome to get out there and see some variety again! On that subject, I found a mixed group of ducks yesterday in a flooded farmer's field. Green-wing Teals, Northern Pintails (lifer), Mallards, Northern Shovellers, possible Cinnamon Teal, and this mystery on the right:  That's a Northern Pintail beside it for reference. Any ideas what it is? This is in Alberta, Canada.
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Apr 14, 2014 15:00
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InternetJunky posted:What a horrible birding winter. Almost no owls and not much else either. Now that the birds are migrating back it's awesome to get out there and see some variety again! looks like an American Wigeon
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Apr 14, 2014 15:08
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Knockknees posted:A pair of American Kestrels has made my urban neighborhood their territory and I see them every day, and I'm 99% sure I know where they're nesting. I wish I had a good zoom camera, because I can't get any good pictures of them 5 stories up I saw the male in a fight with some crows 3 days ago, and I haven't seen them since. I'm worried about my Kestrels!
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Apr 14, 2014 18:06
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We may have a new couple in the neighborhood... Four owl eyes only on Flickr
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Apr 15, 2014 23:00
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I can't possibly admit to reading the pyf meme thread, so I have to vent my frustration here: The "Retail Robin"  is not a robin! How could anyone mistake sialia sialis for turdus migratorius?  As apology for the meme, have a RTHA leaving last weekend's Phillies game: 
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Apr 18, 2014 15:37
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I went to Rainham Marshes RSPB reserve east of London today with my girlfriend, it was a really great day out. At first it was all just the usual suspects, but about halfway around I saw a common tern from one of the hides (the really nice one if you've been), and a weird coloured mallard female, then got into the boardwalk through the reeds and saw a few sedge warblers, instead of just hearing them, and saw a couple of little grebes sitting on nests. The second one had its little chicks out in the water and then they crawled back under mom for warmth  . Then the best bit, we ran into a couple of staffers who'd seen us at the beginning of the trail (it took us nearly 4 hours to do the loop) and they asked us what we'd seen, and once I suppose we'd been deemed worthy, they told us where to go to check out a barn owl in its nest box... we followed their directions and with our scope found the owl's secret little box in a chestnut tree... got to see it preening its breast, and its full face! Pretty cool. The other highlight for me was that there's a bunch of nesting Northern Lapwing there, and I love those things. They'd aggressively chase any crow that came near with their crazy flippy floppy aerobatic flight, and then swoop and dive and flop about back to ground. I could watch those guys flying around all day.I highly recommend it as a place to go birding around London. We drove, but it's fairly accessible by train from central as well (Fenchurch to Purfleet, then about a mile walk).
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Apr 18, 2014 20:19
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hey santa baby posted:I can't possibly admit to reading the pyf meme thread, so I have to vent my frustration here: I hate to break it to you, but that's not an Eastern Bluebird, it's a European Robin, a member of the flycatcher family. E: in fact, it's the original robin that the American Robin was named after even though it's a thrush. One Swell Foop fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Apr 18, 2014 |
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Apr 18, 2014 21:03
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One Swell Foop posted:I hate to break it to you, but that's not an Eastern Bluebird, it's a European Robin, a member of the flycatcher family. And the European "Blackbird" is a Thrush as well. See also: http://albertonykus.deviantart.com/art/Never-Trust-Passerine-Nomenclature-427440361
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Apr 19, 2014 00:13
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Lesser Prairie-chickens in Roosevelt County, NM. Big: http://imgur.com/2VNK3Bh
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Apr 19, 2014 23:59
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Finally got my lifer King Rail last night. Generally have bad luck with Rails and Bitterns and such but it was calling and I got behind this bird blind and was even able to locate the bird in the grass!! I went back to Florida again too! This time I didn't chase as much and relaxed more(just focused on incoming warblers a lot of the time!) but I did manage to get Snail Kite, Burrowing Owl, Black-whiskered Vireo and Bronzed Cowbird. I also saw spring Western Sandpipers and got Summer Tanager as a lifer which I never bothered to look for in MD for whatever reason. I'm pissed that I missed out on Swainson's Warbler though. Oh well, Great Dismal Swamp here I come!
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Apr 21, 2014 16:30
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Congrats on the lifer! The other day I drove up next to this Summer Tanger who, I guess, was so tired from crossing the Gulf that he didn't want to leave his warm roadside. The warbler fallout missed my part of Florida so I mostly saw regular old birds. Breeding plumage Great Blue Herons are something I'll never get tired of however. 
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Apr 22, 2014 00:45
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BeastOfExmoor posted:And the European "Blackbird" is a Thrush as well. Yup, Turdus merula, and most of their calls are so similar to what I'm used to hearing from North American robins (T. migratorius) that for the first couple of days here in Vienna my girlfriend refused to believe me that N. Am. robins are spectacularly rare here. It's fantastic fun to be running into so many birds that I've never really seen before (blackbirds and mallards excepted), even the boring urban birds (doves, crows) are new and interesting. I think it was in this thread, months ago, that I was asking about a good bird book for Europe, and Birds of Europe, 2nd Edition was suggested. Perfect. This book is excellent. Thanks again to everyone who recommended it. There are birds named "robin" all over the world. I think it's because home-sick European (English) colonists would give that name to the first bird they saw in their new colony with a red breast, regardless of phylogenetic association. The "robins" of Australia (Flame, Scarlet, Pink, Dusky, off the top of my head and in Tasmania) are little birds with (mostly) red breasts, and that seems to be enough for the name to stick. I think the name "wren" was similarly applied to any small bird that perched with its narrow tailed cocked upwards, though in that case I suspect the New World wrens are actually fairly close to the European wrens - but not the fairy wrens of Australia.
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Apr 26, 2014 10:58
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ExecuDork posted:I think it was in this thread, months ago, that I was asking about a good bird book for Europe, and Birds of Europe, 2nd Edition was suggested. Perfect. This book is excellent. Thanks again to everyone who recommended it. Glad you like it. It really is an excellent, excellent book and is considered by many to be the best bird field guide in the world. I own it and I have never been outside of North America and have no immediate plans to. In other news, my work emailed me to say they need me to go to Fargo the third week of May. I wasn't too thrilled about this since, ya know, Fargo, but I pulled up an eBird graph for that county and just about fell out of my chair when I got to the Warblers. Third week of May is basically peak Warbler migration and they get a ton of birds. There's like 9 lifer warblers that are passing through at that time and about that many that I've only seen once in Belize. Not to mention Vireos, Tanagers, etc. I'm beyond excited. edit: Speaking of great books, I still have a CamelCamelCamel alert on The Shorebird Guide for some reason and I just got an email saying that it's being sold new 3rd party for under $12 shipped. This book is excellent and well worth owning if you don't already have it. BeastOfExmoor fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Apr 30, 2014 |
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Apr 30, 2014 05:04
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Saw several lifers today for my first Spring migration in West Virginia. Hooded Warbler, Northern Parula, Blackburnian Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, and lots of Summer Tanagers, Baltimore Orioles, Scarlet Tanagers, Indigo Buntings, and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. It was a great morning. Can't wait to get out again tomorrow and see what's out there.
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May 3, 2014 18:47
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Only news around here is that the White Throated Sparrows are singing their little heads off. They're here for about a week before moving on.
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May 4, 2014 17:33
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I love how sparrows seem to just go crazy when they sing. CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP! all goddam day long. Why don't we ever hear sparrows with laryngitis? It seems like they must suffer from such afflictions, given the level of effort they put into shouting "HEY!" over and over.
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May 4, 2014 18:26
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ExecuDork posted:I love how sparrows seem to just go crazy when they sing. CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP! all goddam day long. Why don't we ever hear sparrows with laryngitis? It seems like they must suffer from such afflictions, given the level of effort they put into shouting "HEY!" over and over. You're thinking of European house sparrows (which are invasive in North America.) They're cute but kind of annoying and bully other birds. This is a white throated sparrow, it can actually carry a tune! http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KM9AHOXhu1A.
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May 4, 2014 19:15
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Linedance posted:You're thinking of European house sparrows (which are invasive in North America.) They're cute but kind of annoying and bully other birds. They do a lot more than bully! They invade our native bluebirds nests and murder anything inside. They don't eat the chicks, they just kill them so they can use the nest.
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May 4, 2014 21:35
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I live in southeastern Pennsylvania, and one of the birds that wakes me up every morning in the spring and summer has a high-pitched short song that goes: High-med-high-lower or C-A-C-G# Who is this little devil? I have a bird call app that has helped me identify all the other birds in my yard, but I can't find that one.
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May 5, 2014 21:09
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Just going to go way out on a limb based on some assumptions on what really common birds that make high pitched short songs in that neck of the woods might be and guess Carolina Chickadee? http://www.xeno-canto.org/138604 Chickadee songs are really weird because they don't sound much like the rest of the calls they make all year long. I did a county big day on Friday. I'd never done one before and I did it solo so it was definitely a learning experience. I think I spent too much time trying to get "quality" birds rather than quantity because I got multiple FOY birds for the county, generated a couple rare bird alerts on eBird, but missed fish-in-a-barrel birds like crazy. Still, I had as much fun as waking up at 2:30am to go stand in the woods can be.
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May 5, 2014 21:44
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BeastOfExmoor posted:Just going to go way out on a limb based on some assumptions on what really common birds that make high pitched short songs in that neck of the woods might be and guess Carolina Chickadee? That's not quite it...it's more tuneful and the song pitches downward. I did some more digging, and I think it might be an Eastern Meadowlark. On this page, the third "song" clip and the "song and chatters" clip at the bottom of the first section have that same high-med-high-lower pattern, as does the second clip down on this page. They don't sound exactly like the birds I hear, but maybe that's just natural variation? I'll try to make an audio recording of the ones in my yard.
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May 6, 2014 13:38
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There's lots of variations on the Carolina Chickadee. The one with the tune almost sounds like some kind of clock. But there's one that's less tuneful also. The first time I heard the tuneful one I was sure it was some kind of warbler or something rare I didn't know it was the same as the chickadee. Fee bee fee bay.
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May 6, 2014 14:15
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