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Ratings/thoughts welcome!! https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/547777151

Finally got a half-decent Osprey shot: https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/547980821

Most owls are fairly sensitive to flushing, but because of their cryptic nature and great ability to hide, LEOWs are particularly vulnerable to disturbances, even by those observers exercising extreme caution.

Yes, these are all Pectorals.

Your photos are not hidden. The exact location of the sighting does not appear in eBird aside from the grid level. In a nutshell, you can’t search in detail for this species under the species map in eBird. Your photos do appear in the searchable photo database, but without a specific location beyond the county where the sighting took place.

My video settings were all messed up but it was cool to see a displaying Bittern today.

Rock Wren from today https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/547777121

It’s spring! https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/547662451

https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/548075341 Thoughts?

It's very hard to fake metadata, the photo was definitely taken on a phone. This appears to be on an island with massive breeding colonies of boobys, so it would be hard to not walk and be close to a nest. He was also probably there for research purposes, and likely was conducting some scientific research, as people usually don't visit and walk on offshore islands with breeding seabird colonies otherwise.

It can also be affected by which population you’re talking about. Greater Prairie-Chicken populations in Illinois are listed as sensitive, while the western and apparently the Texas populations aren’t, since you can see exact points and lists. Weird, since Atwater’s is critically endangered… Black Rails are another example.

Fish Crow

Yes, Long-eared Owl. The only similar species in your area is Great Horned Owl, which is bulkier and has horizontal barring on the chest. Your owl is slimmer with vertical barring.

Double-crested Cormorant. Grafton, central New Hampshire, October, 2018. I walked out of the hotel and got my gear out of the rental car. Too late, I realized I had locked the fob in the trunk, something I thought wasn't possible. I called the rental company, then started birding as I'd planned anyway. Adjacent to the hotel was a mini golf, small train for kiddies, and other touristy amusements. This corm was keeping company with Mallards in a pond around the fun park, in water I would have sworn wasn't deep enough to interest a diving bird this large.

I'm working from the ABA list. I have a spreadsheet with a random number generator. I check the list to which species matches that week's number. When I post that species, I remove it from the list so it won't be picked again soon. I don't always select the random species. If it's a rarity, I'll skip it and generate another number. I try to stick with species that can be found in a large part of NA for at least some part of the year. Sometimes that means the chosen bird will frequent only the east, west, midsection, or coasts. I may choose to add a second species or a group of species so that more people will have a chance to participate - chickadees or cormorants, for example. I may also combine a group of birds that may not be individually common enough for many people to have photographed. This week the species randomly chosen was one of the less common cormorants. I wanted to use the infrequent bird, and I noticed there were a few other uncommon corms, none of which merited being the bird of the week on their own. If I hadn't been on the road working from a tablet, I would have noticed DCCO had already been used. I didn't, so I threw it this week open to all corms. So my approach is select birds that are likely to have been photographed by many people, not to get as many photos as possible from each person. There are plenty of photo galleries here, including one for postings for no reason at all, with no restrictions on anyone starting a new discussion on any topic he or she chooses. (Indeed, in my opinion there are more threads than necessary, but not every thread has to appeal to every member, including me.) I plan to work through the majority of ABA list but there are some birds that aren't going to make the cut. At this time, one photo per poster per week will continue to be my standard policy.

I just wanted to say thanks for doing these weekly birds. I know it might feel like a thankless job with some of the criticism you get so I just wanted to go out the way to say, Thank You.

birdie 🦢 #305: 🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ https://birdiegame.net/

@CRJ, welcome to Whatbird You may have had a Northern Bobwhite. Click this link and scroll down to 'Calls and Wing Sound'. The wing sounds are at the -06 second mark. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Bobwhite/sounds They can fly okay, they usually choose not to. Everything likes to eat quail, including larger, faster birds. Taking a short, quick flight to a new hiding place is a defensive strategy.

I found this video highly informative and answered many of my subconscious questions about animals and how they perceive the world, so I thought people here would also enjoy this! Ever wonder how birds can differentiate between so many similar and basically identical chip notes? Well, when you experience the world more than twice as slow as us, those chip notes become much more intelligible and lower pitched sounds! This also begs the question: how much better at sound ID would Merlin be if you hooked it up to a microphone with significant high range extension and just slowed the speed of recording playback? Also, lizards can change the speed of time?!?

That is a Pacific Loon! Good luck chasing it.

Canada Goose

Yes, since Great Horned Owl isn’t a sensitive species. Great Gray, Northern Hawk-Owl, Gyrfalcon, and now Long-eared owl are all listed as Sensitive on eBird, as well as many more. The usual reasoning is due to low populations and/or sensitivity to disturbance. Gyrfalcons have low population numbers, and are sensitive to being nest raided by falconers.

All I can say is-- nioce. 👌

Yesterday's first guess was the correct guess. birdie 🦆 #305: 🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ https://birdiegame.net/ Third day in a row first try!

Seen this afternoon in NW Missouri. This pair of Hooded Merganser stayed together. One clearly looks like an adult female. The other one sortof looks like a male. But I've only seen adult males. Is this one an immature male, or an eclipse male?

birdie 🦆 #305: 🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ https://birdiegame.net/

Honestly I think it should be, as photographers love to hound them. Maybe it’s because their populations are still relatively high.

Long-eared Owl was recently (i.e. last month I believe) made a Sensitive Species across the USA. Before that, it was not a sensitive species in many states (such as Maryland).

New county bird for me, as well as a yearbird! Rock Wren

Not much going on here. Somebody recently reported a few Common Mynas in a local Walmart parking lot, so I drove down in a failed attempt to get the lifer. - https://ebird.org/checklist/S131371127 The main list. It's an OK checklist. I was mainly here to get a Blue-winged Warbler lifer, but the bird was nowhere to be found. - https://ebird.org/checklist/S131405754 I wasn't expecting much here this time of day -https://ebird.org/checklist/S131406995

https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/547775451

When I turned this thread totally over to Charlie, it came with no strings attached and he can make whatever rules he wants to(assuming it is within the overall forum rules of course). As Charlie has already stated, there is plenty of other topics to post photos in, and if anyone does not like the rules of this thread, they don't have to participate. I don't want to hear any more complaints about how this thread is run, if you don't like it leave. A polite question or suggestion is alright, repeated posts of annoyance about the photo limits are not!

I have better cormorant photos of a different species, but I'll do this one for the level of interest. This was when I had only started kind of birding and I thought it was a penguin 😆. New Zealand Pied Shag. This was on a nice secluded beach on a windy spring (for the southern hemisphere) day.

It was a joke about texting and driving… I didn’t actually mean you were texting and posting.

birdie 🦆 #305: 🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ I have not seen this bird.

@Kevin, is there a way to insert a poll in an existing discussion? Thanks.

This guy is amazing! https://media.ebird.org/catalog?mediaType=photo&searchField=user&userId=USER1708145&sort=upload_date_desc&unconfirmed=incl&view=grid

I definitely recommend stopping at most of the trails along the main road through Everglades down to Flamingo, especially Mrazek Pond. This post of mine has some advice:

I'm apparently one species ahead of last year. I haven't been able to go out birding since returning from Texas due to a long workweek followed by awful weather and needing to help parents.

Thanks. My post on ebird of the owl gets a 'sensitive' notice: "Public information for Sensitive Species is restricted due to potential harmful impact to these birds. Site-specific information is visible only to the observer and eBird reviewer(s) for the region." "We encourage you not to share specific location information about this sighting via social media, public websites, or email listservs." So my owl post and photo remains hidden from non-ebird viewers. I think that the owl was resting at 4-5 feet above ground was the reason.

Last excerpt. This one is from Birds of the World (yes, I bought a subscription). In regards to other, non-plumage ID features of Hooded Merganser; IRIS In hatchlings moderately yellowish brown (Nelson 1992a). In females iris brownish buff or brownish olive. In males iris similar to females in first cycle, becoming bright yellow in adults. Color can be used to sex Definitive Alternate birds in the field. BILL and GAPE In hatchlings upper mandible brownish slate; lower mandible, lamellae, tomia, and base of bill at commisure yellowish pink to light orange; nail reddish brown, pinker at tip; upper egg tooth pale dull yellow, yellowish or pinkish white; lower egg tooth yellowish white, translucent and scale-like. First-cycle and older female with upper mandible blackish green with orange edge; lower mandible muted orange or yellowish. First-cycle male with bill brownish green with orange edge, becoming darker in spring; Adult male with bill black, duskier and paling to yellowish at base in Jun-Sep. Based on this info, I believe both birds are immature males, with one a little farther along in it's molt. The yellow eyes also verify them both as males--darkish eyes in males turn yellow early on, whereas female eyes are always dark. Regarding the bill, male bills turn dark early on, while female bills never turn dark for both upper and lower mandibles. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Birds of the World is supposed to be pretty much THE definitive source. The downside to this resource is how many words I had to look up! Thanks everyone for your input on this.

Double-crested Cormorant, and friends.

"Doing yoga as a duck sure is hard...I don't know how much longer I can balance on these tail feathers"

I’m getting way too much enjoyment from this discussion.

Complete typo on my part, species name is fixed now 😓

I'm now at 205 species for the year with a Swainson's Hawk and Rufous Hummingbird. I'm currently sitting 27 species behind last year at this date.

8 FOY yesterday got me up to 75 for the year. Still way, way behind best years. Still little motivation to get out with the crazy weather.

Carolina Wren

Looks to me like a Tree Swallow with the pure white underparts.