Jerry Friedman

Española, N.M., today. 1. Mixed habitat with tall cottonwoods, cattails, grass, etc. Merlin hears a Brown Creeper after I say it's hearing all kinds of things. I can't hear Brown Creeper calls at my age. Any confirmation? creeperq9crop.mp3 2. Right next to narrow ponds where I've had Northern Waterthrush twice before (though they're pretty rare in the area). Merlin says some of the chips are Northern Waterthrush, but I'm a bit disturbed that it doesn't say that after the chips get louder. (There were even louder ones earlier in the recording, which it refused to identify. I could upload them too if it would be of any interest.) I'm not good with these chip things. Again, any confirmation? waterthrushq3crop2.mp3

@RobinHood posted a G-rated shot from the same sequence.

We did that on in July 2021.

Twilight at the Bosque del Apache.

Welcome to Whatbird! Have you seen the adult Mississippi Kites, which are gray with black tails? https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Mississippi_Kite

Shooting fish in a barrel:

Great shot! It could go in

Birdscape!

All right, that does it. With apologies to Brian Wilson's warblers: The East Coast gulls are hip, I dig the way they laugh and jeer, And the northern gulls with their snow-white wings, they get me up when they're down here. The Midwest Franklin's Gulls, they keep the plowboys company, But when they get together, they all look the same to me. So I wish they all could be California, wish they all could be California, wish they all could be California Gulls. The West Coast has the sunshine, and the gulls hang on the sand, And the Heermann's Gulls are the only ones that I really understand. There's Herring, Ring-billed, Short-billed, Western, hybrid Glaucous-winged, And Laughing, Thayer's, two kittiwakes--I just throw up my hands and sing, I wish they all could be California, wish they all could be California, wish they all could be California Gulls.

Former Cordilleran with some missing belly feathers: Juvenile:

That subspecies used to be called Lilian's Meadowlark. A bunch of subspecies with an important geographical feature in common, I believe.

Despite my partial color-blindness (deuteranomaly), your bird's head and back are obviously green, not dull brown like a female House Finch.

Here's a similar view of a female Painted Bunting. https://pixels.com/featured/3-female-painted-bunting-ira-runyan.html

I was worried that they might step on the phalarope.

Loggerhead

Red-tailed Hawk with the dark patagial marks (along the leading edges of the wings) and belly-band. A juvenile because of the non-red tail and the pale "panels" near the wingtips. It seems to have more light or white mottling above and maybe a darker tail than usual. (Sniped.)

If @BigOly and @Clip don't mind, I'll remind them that there's a thread that explicitly has no rules, and they could easily say something here like, "While I'm at it, I'll post my photo of a B---- Mockingbird in the No Rules thread."

Cleveland, Ohio, 2017, which I'm mentioning only because when I was a kid in the Cleveland area, we didn't see these birds.

Same. Come to think of it, I believe I'm the only resident of Rio Arriba County who reports data to eBird, although some much better birders bird here. (Rio Arriba is a bit over six times the area of Orange County and has about 1/79 of the population).

Well?

Ah, thanks, that explains it.

That grayish bird? To me its bill looks tiny compared to the dowitcher's.

Just a llama hint from my sister, whose life isn't totally different from yours: Never acquire an animal named Charger.

Is the third bird from the right another Pectoral?

Red-tailed Hawk: big and bulky, white underparts with markings forming a belly-band. I can't tell what's going on in the other pictures.