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Anna's Hummingbird and double-crested Cormorant.

Eastern Phoebe's

Grasshopper Sparrow

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron Great Blue Heron A gigantic Mountain Bluebird The problem with eyewitness testimony is that eyewitnesses are generally really poor at it. There is an extensive -- and I mean EXTENSIVE -- literature on the fallibility of eyewitness reports. Our brains are incredibly good at MIS-interpreting information. There are no bird species that occur regularly in New Jersey that are entirely blue. Mountain Bluebird has occurred, but it eats mice even more infrequently than does Merlin. New or inexperienced birders are regularly stumped in situations of seeing common species in poor or odd lighting, situations that experienced birders have learned to account for by making weird mistakes earlier in their birding lives.

Finally, the why: The bird is a Broad-winged because both of its parents were Broad-wingeds. ?

The last bird in the first photo looks like a good White-faced candidate to me. I can't tell if the others are Glossys or non-breeding White-faceds. Last photo has a Great Egret, Great Blue Heron, Roseate Spoonbill, Glossy Ibises, and White ibises. Nice group!

Okay. After dark, so I'll post the next challenge. Trying to make it as fair as possible, so I'm picking a widely distributed bird, Northern Mockingbird. BUT, to make it a bit more difficult, since almost anyone in the lower 48 can find a Mockingbird, let's make it more specific as TBN did. So, the challenge is to get a photo of a Northern Mockingbird in an evergreen tree, e.g., pine, cedar, etc. Good luck everyone!!!

Swainson's Hawks

Palm Warbler

I'm out of likes like usual. Thanks All. I kind of live on a few acres in the middle of a swamp so I tend to get a lot of waders here eating the crawdads and frogs of which there are many. It floods easy here too but shallow enough that the waders love it and I love watching them. I have 3 Roseate Spoonbills and 2 Little Blue Herons out there now. Nothing like watching a giant pink bird walking along haha. When I first moved to Texas I thought I had gotten too much sun when I saw a large pink bird fly by one afternoon. Little did I know :)

Looks good for a Song Sparrow.

Appears to be an adult Broad-winged Hawk. Note the dark trailing edge of the wing, barred underparts, and thick-banded tail.

That is one interesting bird. Maybe one of the new Red-winged x Ruby-throated hybrids?

I was so close to winning!! .........….except this photo was taken on Wed...……..and I'm pretty sure it wasn't an evergreen tree ;)

I suppose that it would be kind of important to put IDs on the other gulls here in order to determine how big the apparently smaller gull is. However, we can start with the premise that there is not FRGU here. Any Frankie now with adult wings would would have a black head. The larger gull behind the smaller gull seems to have a darker gray mantle and it definitely has wide and distinct scapular and tertial crescents. That combo should enable an ID of Cal Gull. The overexposed larger gull in front of the Cal has a noticeably wide and very distinct tertial crescent and it's roughly the same size as the Cal, so I'd call that another Cal. The back bird is problematic, but it doesn't look of significantly different size than the Cals, so I'm pretty happy with it as a third Cal. That leaves what I presume is the bird in question. If the Cal right behind is a male, then, given the pitfalls of size illusion in telephoto photography, the front bird might be large enough to be a Ringer. However, it, too, seems to have distinct scapular and tertial crescents, which rules out Ring-billed Gull. Since the white tips to the primaries rule out Bonaparte's, there's really only one reasonable option in ID in April: Mew. As I assume that Mew its at least "interesting" there, I'd be leery of actually identifying it as such without a better photo.

Reminded of what? Is today the day to put out the garbage, or............Oh, yeah!!! Reminding me to post a challenge!! I remember now!! OK, I'll think of something and post it after it gets dark here, in a couple of hours. Thanks for the reminder! ?

Chipping Sparrow by Mark Goodwin, on Flickr

Actually, it's "Great Horned." There is only one bird species that is of regular occurrence in Canada and/or the continental US that has a hyphen after "Great." The "Great" birds are: Great Black-backed Gull Great Blue Heron Great Cormorant Great Crested Flycatcher Great Egret Great Gray Owl Great Kiskadee Great Shearwater Great Skua Great-tailed Grackle

It might just be a very old female that has lost so much female hormone that it's expressing male plumage. The peach colored throat is a feature of adult female Red-wingeds. In birds, unlike in mammals such as ourselves, male is the default sex. That is, male is the homozygous sex, rather than female, which is heterozygous. That means that female hormones override the expression of male plumage characters in female birds. When those hormone levels drop below some threshold, male plumage features can begin being expressed -- that is, not overridden. However, I believe that soft-parts coloration, if they differ between the sexes (such as in Bushtit and most ducks), is not affected, as the soft parts are not replaced. Whatever the cause, that bird is COOL!

immature Black-crowned Night-Heron Immature not juvenile

Yes, no doubt a Broad-winged with the lack of pale crescents near the wingtips and that tail pattern (RSHAs have much thinner white bands). They look dark because no light is getting through to them.

Pine Warbler is correct. Note the thick bill, thin eye-arcs, and prominent wingbars.

Sharp-shinned.

This is a Song.

Another for Broad-winged.

Varied Thrush?

She/he said last time, "The 2018 shots were with a Canon 1DX II and Canon 100-400 II. The 2017 ones were with a Canon 7D II and Sigma 150-600. I've since ditched dSLRs in favor of mirrorless. I now shoot Sony a9 and Sony 200-600mm."

Common Grackle for me based on the big head and shorter neck.

Lesser Yellowlegs Greater Yellowlegs Greater Yellowlegs (foreground); Lesser Yellowlegs (background)?

Bald Eagle

Sorry, @Jefferson Shank that was kind of mean of me... I recommend reading this post by Tony Leukering. He explains it better than I ever could.

It's got extensive flank streaking, so Swamp is right out. Lincoln's has more and thinner back streaks.

agreed

House FInch

Did you mean to post a photo? Merlin is the closest think I can think of. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Merlin/overview

Absolutely Broad-winged

From what I can see of the tail, the stripes look more like Broad than RSHA

As to who would win in a fight, it depends - a Gyrfalcon could destroy a Borad-winged Hawk, I'd imagine, while a Ferruginous Hawk could swallow a Kestrel whole and not think twice about it

Juvenile Harlan’s Red-tailed Hawk is correct. Note the banding on the outer primaries, white mottling on the head/body, and “spiked” tail feathers.

Male House Finch

I like how you used the name of the forum in the title of the topic

No they are definitely all Forster's

Lots of foot trailing the tail -- Lesser

Bouvier des Flandres The bouvier breed is well regarded for providing an intuitive and affectionate companion, a protector of family and property, and a hard working farm dog. My wife is working on her cross-stitch embroidery as we hunker down in this Covid-19 emergency. The bouvier has no concept of social distancing. The bouvier takes up a lot of floor space!

Looks like Ring-billed to me.

Just based on structure, I like Boat-tailed for the first two photos and a Bronzed Common for the last photo.

California Scrub Jay. Sorry the photo isn't better, but it's the best I could do within 5 minutes of reading this challenge!! ? Taken 11:10 this morning in Sacramento. IMG_2608 by Wayne J Smith, on Flickr

Cerulean Warbler