Jerry Friedman
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Posts posted by Jerry Friedman
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Welcome to Whatbird, gajeepn! I agree that those are Eastern Phoebes, and I too am I'm surprised to learn that they'll eat bread. It's very possible that bread isn't good for them. I doubt that much is known about this.
Where are you (at least state or province)? Knowing the location is often helpful in identifying the bird, so there's a rule here that people have to give the date and the location, maybe roughly, for every ID request.
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With a weird-looking Mallard or hybrid, is there ever any way to tell whether the weirdness is from domestic ancestry?
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17 minutes ago, IKLland said:
Krider’s?
This is Krider's subspecies.
https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/291626331
Eastern juveniles are often pretty lightly marked on a white background compared to Western, but I'd think Krider's would have still lighter markings and more white on the head.
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Came across this one from 2016. If you look at it in maximum size, it might count.
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It looks somewhat different in the two photos, making it hard to call, I'd think. Since borealis (Eastern) is the expected subspecies in St. Louis, I don't think there's a strong reason to doubt it, though it does look lightly marked below (especially in the second picture), and if the throat is really dark, that's strange.
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23 hours ago, DLecy said:
The birding gods don’t appreciate it when you call gulls annoying, FYI.
The birding gods need to face facts.
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11 hours ago, AlexHenry said:
Funny, I’ve always used “murmuration” for big flocks of peeps and other small shorebirds flying around all synchronized
Just curious, since I guessed that meaning might have started in this century--do you remember when you first heard it or used it that way?
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1 hour ago, lonestranger said:
Most references I came across suggested that mumrmurations are exclusive to Starlings only.
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I agree that that's how it should be used, but you can find people applying it to other birds.
https://salemart.org/events/murmurations-anne-kresge-mike-nord/
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12 minutes ago, Larry B said:
Thanks Avery. I believe they were Sandhill Cranes. Based on their vocalization and migration schedule,
Yes, the pattern looks consistent with Sandhill Cranes, and nothing else sounds like that.
*walks away doing imitation*
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1 hour ago, RobinHood said:
Not a chance - I think it is typically used for a flock of Starlings (maybe other species?) flying in synchronized patterns, usually in the evening (I would love to see this).
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Yes, the original bird-related meaning of "murmuration" was a flock of European Starlings, no matter how big the flock or what it was doing. The Oxford English Dictionary says it was invented around 1450 and was "One of many alleged group terms originating in late Middle English glossarial sources; found only in glossaries until revived and popularized in the mid-19th cent."
In recent times (just this century?), videos of big flocks of starlings maneuvering in sync have become popular, and "murmuration" has come to mean a big dense flock of any species doing that. I guess it could spread to mean any big dense flock, but if it has, no one has told me.
One of the OED's quotations is from the poet W. H. Auden:
Patterns a murmuration of starlings
Rising in joy over wolds unwittingly weave.-
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I feel the second bird is a Harlan's, and I'd be surprised if it wasn't the same bird. The primaries, especially the outermost ones, banded to the tips are good for juvenile dark and intermediate Harlan's. It doesn't have the pale markings on the tips of the tail feathers, but I think some Harlan's don't have that.
See this thread for a very similar bird:
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3 hours ago, Charlie Spencer said:
Last bump.
But I liked "just an Amakihi".
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12 hours ago, Ruslan Balagansky said:
Seen flying over San Diego Zoo Safari Park on Sunday.
Noticed it looked odd but couldn't tell what it was, so tried to photograph it for later identification. Unfortunately, this is the best I got:
Is this a red-tailed hawk in bad lighting, something else, or unidentifiable?
Thanks! I'm leaning red-tailed.
Since it's in a safari park, can we rule out Augur Buzzard, wintering Common Buzzard, etc? 🙂
With the unmarked or subtly marked tail and the comma on the wing, I'd lean Red-tailed too, though it seems Ferruginous has occurred there.
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1 hour ago, AlexHenry said:
What is this counting “fingers” thing on buteos? I’ve never used it myself and feel like I’ve only heard of it on this forum?
Broad-winged Hawks and Swainson's Hawks have four fingers (primaries that are separated due to emargination), other buteos have five, accipiters and eagles have six. That can be very useful, especially on silhouetted birds. The hawkwatchers at the Raptor ID group on Facebook talk about it all the time, and here's a web site that mentions them and notes that it's the only sure way to tell dark-morph Broad-winged from dark-morph Short-tailed, not that that's likely at in the U.S. or Canada.
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I should add that other pictures would only be helpful if you're interested in whether the subspecies is Harlan's or Western (and if you are, maybe an expert could tell even without other pictures).
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Looks like an intermediate-morph juvenile Red-tail to me. The large amount of white mottling suggests Harlan's, but maybe the dark throat and warmish brown color don't so much. Do you have any better shots of the tail or anything with the open wings?
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Sorry, but I don't think that's the same bird. The Greater Scaup that you showed pictures of has a light-colored ring around its neck (caused by missing feathers), whereas your bird's neck is simply darker below and lighter above. And the pattern of mottling on the side (due to molt, I guess) looks different.
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4 hours ago, BlueJay said:
What indicators make this a Redhead instead of a Greater Scaup?
Rufous barely visible on the back of the head, sharp line between different colors on the lower and upper neck, doesn't have white sides like a male scaup or white patches next to the base of the bill like a female.
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Isn't the duck more likely to be a Redhead?
Pass on the other bird. Your impressions in the field are much more reliable than anything I could get from these photos.
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The lightened version makes it even a clearer Swainson's.
Over at Facebook, Lucas Wilson wrote,
"Yes, Swainson's Hawk, a rare but regular migrant and wintering bird in Florida. Exceedingly long, tapering wings and shock white undertail coverts on a dark/dark intermedaite morph raptor (that's not just the lighting)."
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1 hour ago, AlexHenry said:
@Jerry Friedman since you seem to be a raptor fan
A fan, not an expert, but the shape sure looks like a Swainson's to me, with long, narrow wings lacking a secondary bulge, only four "fingers" and a relatively long tail. The plumage looks right too--the wing linings are a little lighter than the flight feathers, there's a prominent comma, and the tail is right. I think Red-shouldered is ruled out by the commas and the lack of wing crescents despite some visible backlighting. Red-tailed would have patagial marks [*] and bulging wings.
@dragon49I think you can go ahead and report this as Swainson's, given the general impression here. As usual, if you like I could put it on the Raptor ID group on Facebook. As @Aidan Bsaid, if you have even distant shots showing how it holds its wings when soaring, that would seal the deal--Swainson's flies with a dihedral (wings raised a bit above the horizontal).
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The rufous underparts and rows of white marks on the wing are good signs of an adult Red-shoulder.
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Potential hybrid duck
in Help Me Identify a North American Bird
Posted
Welcome to Whatbird! But I'm leaving this one to people who have more experience with Black Ducks.