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One of over 300 Red Phalarope blown in by storms today https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/524118091

Barred Owl photographed yesterday afternoon at Loess Bluffs NWR in NW Missouri. Not only was this the closest I've ever been to a Barred Owl in flight, thinking it was coming right at me, I actually ducked!

Sliding in before the new bird is announced this week. ATFL.

Alaska? Nope, it was in Iowa. Following the devastating floods that hit Eastern Nebraska and Western Iowa in Fall 2019, when the waters finally receded in January and February the following year, previously flooded farmers' fields were left with millions of stranded fish. This brought Bald Eagles to the area in the thousands. This pic, taken in early February 2020, shows at least 50 eagles. I counted over 500 eagles that day, in the fields on either side of this one mile stretch of road!

Another storm-blown Red Phalarope from yesterday. https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/524331951

Thanks. Seeing tough Red-tails is what you get for living in the middle of the country. 🙂 Mike Borlé replied on Facebook: "It's a gorgeous juvenile intermediate-morph Harlan's with the white streaking and speckling on the body plumage and wing linings, outer primaries banded to the tips, thick flight feather and tail banding, and pale inner webs on the tips of the tail feathers. There is a cohort of juvenile, and adult Harlan's for that matter that are warm toned like this bird so that shouldn't talk us out of the ID. Especially with all of the other check marks in the Harlan's column. ID points in favor of juvenile are the rufous-brownish banded tail, light amber eye, and lack of a thick, dark trailing edge on the wings. The patagial bars are light indeed of any Red-tail this heavily marked, it happens on some intermediate juveniles, particularly Harlan's. But they are there and just obscured by the rest of the markings on the wing linings. It's a great looking young Red-tail, thanks for sharing."

Copying somebody’s post Hi all, I wanted to draw your attention to a fantastic new resource for birders called birdinghotspots.org. This is a wiki-style website where anyone can contribute photos and descriptions for eBird hotspots. Every entry has tips for birding, birds of interest, and a section with general information about the location. For an example, see the description for Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County. If you've never birded a location before, this resource can be indispensable, as it gives you all the tips you need for where to go, what to look for, as well as - for many hotspots - a little bit of the natural history of the site (see e.g. Baron Ranch Trail). When there are multiple adjacent hotspots, you can include a map with the boundaries, so that people know where to use which hotspot (see Devereux Slough). There's also a function to create groups of hotspots that are in the same general vicinity, so you can get an overview of where to go and what to expect in the different locations. Examples, again from Santa Barbara County, include the Figueroa Mountain area and Cuyama Valley. The website was created by Ken Ostermiller and Adam Jackson and each county has one or more admins that approve suggestions. The coverage was recently extended to California, and the first county to get started was Santa Barbara, where there are now over 100 complete entries. Contributing is easy. On the page for each hotspot, there are buttons for "suggest edit" and "upload photos." Your contribution can be a few sentences with some logistical tips, or something longer. Uploading a photo just takes a couple of clicks. I hope the coverage can extend to more parts of California to help more local and out-of-state birders. If you are keen on this project, consider applying to become an admin by filling in the contact form here. This mostly involves approving edits and cleaning up text in places. Conor McMahon (cc'd) and I are admins for Santa Barbara County. I've found that it's not a lot of work, and I get great satisfaction from seeing new entries being created. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me, Ken, or Adam (cc'd). Linus ______________ Linus Blomqvist Goleta, CA

@Kevin, I am proud of you for being who you are. I agree with your assessment of todays society 100%. There seems to be a very depressing lack of respect for other people by way too many people nowadays! I use 'Sir' and 'Ma'am' every day to people who are younger than me (which most people are!). I wish more people, especially the younger generations, would follow your example. I think we would have a much better society if there was more mutual respect. Keep up the good work!!!

I suppose it is that I'm tired that first word you hear out of someone, is the f word. It seem so many people are just unfriendly and or plain out rude now days. Nobody seems to have any respect for anybody, guess I'm just trying to turn that the other direction a little.

There's a lot I could say on this subject, but I'll just say that one of the many reasons I like this forum is that people generally treat each other with consideration and respect--which can include some teasing when both consider it appropriate, as @Charlie Spencerexemplified above.

This gets put on my checklist as abieticola every day of the week, and twice on Sundays. Tail has very little banding on it. Similar to Figure 8 characteristics in wings and legs. https://northernredtails.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/rth_aabieticiola_north_american_birds_march_2014.pdf

Nice. Thanks! I appreciate how he states that the warm tones shouldn't talk us out of the ID. There were a number of features consistent with harlani, but I really couldn't get past the warm tones of the bird.

I’m still moving very slow, but my first excursion that wasn’t within walking distance brought me to 18. Was supposed to hike up in the mountains today so that woulda gotten me to the mid-20s. Probably will start heading out more, not really sure why I haven’t. It would be nice to finish the month near 50. Still lots of easy birds around.

I’m up to 138. I’m in the desert until Monday afternoon, but it’s not for birding, so any species I get were simply incidentals.

I'll go with this Pied-billed grebe: https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/524094801

Ruddy Duck: https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/524391901

Red-necked Grebe & Ruddy Duck

In case it wasn’t clear for everyone, the birders have to add the information for each location, I believe. I’m going to go in and add info for my local spots later today. Some people wish that these details were on the eBird hotspot pages, rather than on a separate site.

Wow! It seems like you can't win. If someone is trying to be respectful (and not snarky) I will never have any objections to that. We are all different ages and from different backgrounds here, and I think some tolerance for variation in what feels kind, appropriate, and respectful is in order. And I don't think it's reasonable to expect everyone to follow your non-standard preferences in a forum like this! (I definitely have been referred to as "mister" and didn't appreciate that; but I never take offense if someone calls me Miss, Ma'am, Señora, or Doña. In fleeting interactions it just doesn't matter, and again it's just someone trying to be polite. In long-term relationships there's plenty of opportnity to make your preferences known.)

That's okay, the bit about 'no offense intended' didn't apply to you anyway.

I blame some of that on social media. It's easy to be rude to complete strangers you'll never meet face to face, and won't suffer any repercussions.

The bird looks to buffy to be a Northern to me, and the dribbles and breast and don’t look blobby enough. I defer to the experts though.

I believe the mostly dark throat suggests Western or Northern, and the dark color of the head "dribbles" down the breast to the blobby bellyband, which makes me think of Northern (abieticola).

Up to 146 for the year with a few outings in the past couple of days. Rain is letting up though!

Photographed this afternoon just south of Council Bluffs Iowa. The predominantly Eastern RTHAs in my area typically have a white to creamy chest and underwing. The belly band can range from almost non-existent to medium (in most cases). The belly band on this adult is a little darker than most Easterns seen here. But I'm more interested in the buff color underwing. Is this just a different (less common) color morph Eastern, or maybe a light morph Western? In winter here (Eastern NE/Western IA), we see the greatest variety of RTHA sub species. The other 3 seasons we almost exclusively see Eastern.

Yes, juvenile dark-morph Harlan's. (Technically, "juvenile" means the first plumage with real feathers, not down, which this is. "Immature" means later plumages that aren't full adult plumage, as in Bald Eagles. If I remember correctly, Red-tails don't have immature plumages that can identified in the field or at all.)

Mike had added another comment and marked up part of one of @smittyone@cox.net's photos. "Here's a look at the ultra-thick tail banding and I've highlighted the pale inner webs I mentioned, on the tips of the tail feathers. Some of the tail feathers are folded a bit too much as the bird maneuvers to see the pale web. Hopefully this helps some members a bit less familiar with Harlan's Red-tails."

I have some homework to do first before I put forth my arguments.

birdie 🦃 #240: 🟥🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛ https://birdiegame.net/ I really ought to have gotten this one faster, the first picture was really disorienting.

Reddish Egret-White Morph

What about Spotted Sandpiper?

Personally, I don't care for titles associated with my name. I don't even let my nieces and nephews call me Uncle Glen, the Uncle part is a descriptive title to explain the family relationship to others, it's not part of my name. I drove my point home when I started calling my brothers children by title, Nephew A, and Niece B, everytime they called me Uncle Glen. I prefer titles to be used when talking about me, I prefer it to be more personal and just my name used when someone is talking to me. Call me Mr Mercer just once, and I will quickly tell you that my name is Glen, not Mr.. So don't worry about offending me by not adding a title to my name, but don't be offended if I don't add a title to your name. It's not a lack of respect, I just find titles somewhat cold and impersonal. No offense intended Mr Spencer, Sir.?

redhead and ring-necked ducks

Yep.

I was a military brat, then Army myself. Everyone gets a "Sir" or a "Ma'am". If I get it wrong or or that's not preferred, there was no offense intended.

I'm up to 75 species, the earliest I've seen that many species around DC in a few years.

That means Manny and Connor must be like suppa famous

Agreed with a northern, or Abieticola Red-tailed. Nice bird, and photo!

Done. They're happy with all pictures of Red-tails from the U.S. (there's a separate group for Canada), though they're especially excited about unusual or instructive ones. I may very well also post the one from Iowa that I called a Northern. (And he's Mike, not Mark. There are other experts there too.)

I figured out why professional photographers get all the good photos. The birds want their photos taken by a well known name!🤣

I was so lost on the first pic. birdie 🐦 #240: 🟥🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛ https://birdiegame.net/

That's an easier risk to take when you can write it off on the taxes as a business deduction / loss. On those occasions I tried the kayak, it was always with my cheapest gear. Even then, Rule #1 remains "Everything gets tethered." Rule #2? "If it isn't being used, put it back in its Zip-Loc (tm)."

Kayaks are excellent for birding those hard-to-access places, but, in my experience, if you want to photograph from one, best to use a tandem and a helper. My sweet spouse has served as my gondolier (and spotter) on several occasions. I will say that the the anxiety of losing my equipment drastically affects my enjoyment of the outing.

Yah know, I've been thinking for several months about a web site to provide details on hot spots. I may contact these folks. I'd like to see more physical details about each hot spot - bathrooms, paved or unpaved trails, ADA accessibility, vending machines or snacks, physical conditions (wet, dry, flat, steep), etc. Boy howdy, y'all sure jam the hotspots together in Santa Barbara. It appears the local hotspot approver accepts any location people suggest! Some of those look to be only a few hundred feet apart.

Looks like the normal Eastern Red-tailed Hawk

If there is any wind, yes.

First day of the Morro Bay Winter Bird Festival, and got some good birds! https://ebird.org/tripreport/101402

Well, your preference is certainly a good reason to use Mr. and Ms., and Mx. if it seems indicated. And you could restrict it to people whose age, gender, and surname you're reasonably sure of. You might not be the only one who's comfortable that way. On the other hand, some might find it uncomfortable, "like school" or "like my first job". On the other hand, I like an informal atmosphere, especially in a situation like this that's about learning and helping people learn in ways that have nothing to do with age, status, college degrees, or anything else that goes with conventional social respect. Anyway, it's not a big deal, and I'm not trying to talk you out of it.

"Hey guys, look...it's the flasher!"