lonestranger

I THINK this is a Northern Mockingbird, @Stamperlovesbirds. If you post it in the ID forum you can get someone more familiar with them to confirm or correct me. https://forums.whatbird.com/index.php?/forum/2-help-me-identify-a-north-american-bird/

Just so you know, @Bird-Boys, by replying to posts that are nearly a year old, just to agree with already confirmed IDs, you are putting old old posts at the top of ID forum and bumping the current ID requests further and further down the page or off the first page altogether. Try to keep an eye on the date of the topic you are replying to, so new ID requests aren't buried under the old ones.

I'm not going to make recommendations, but I will say that tripods usually have a hook on the centre column to connect a weight to help weigh the tripod down and make it more stable in adverse conditions. If you're not weighting your tripod down, you're not maximizing stability. I have an empty nylon mesh onion bag, that I can fill with rocks wherever I happen to be, then I attach the bag of rocks to the centre column with a bungy cord that's just long enough for the bag of rocks to touch the ground so that it doesn't swing. The mesh bag comes in handy when putting the tripod in rough water as it just needs a shake to get rid of excess water and dirt when you're done. Here's a few videos with relevant tripod tips.

Are you talking about Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the USA, @johnwest, or are you in another part of the world? South Africa maybe? I ask because your suggested IDs aren't North American birds, and this is a North America ID forum. Some people can still help with the ID, but it'll be a lot more accurate if they know where the bird was spotted.

Thanks for the correction, The Bird Nuts. Having never seen anything but house wrens, I was guessing they were Carolina wrens.

Your last photo didn't load either, cobal.

Yes, I can see them now, but there's only 4 photos where your original post showed 5 missing photos. I agree with you that #3 is a brown-headed cowbird, I THINK that #1 & #2 are Carolina wrens and #4 looks like a song sparrow. Wait for someone that has more confidence/experience to confirm these though.

Your images aren't showing for me, @cobal.

Nice shot bearcat6. Any idea what it is I'm seeing draped across the duck? It almost looks like he's got a camera strap on his shoulders.

You're not the only one. I had pretty much given up on IDing some flycatchers because I could never figure out how people gauged the primary projection in relation to the tail. Now that I know what to look for, I will be paying closer attention to the less obvious flycatchers.

For what it's worth, my first thought was night heron based on GISS(General Impression, Size, and Shape) and the fact it was seen nightly, at night.

Welcome to Whatbird, @mdawn. I suggest that you try reposting the pic again. Quite often when a pic disappears, it's because the the photo was removed or renamed after being IDed. If that's not the case, then there's a glitch somewhere and the photo needs to be reposted.

Welcome to Whatbird, @Beth S. A photo would definitely help with an ID, but the behaviour sounds similar to that of a Northern Mockingbird. I've never seen their aggressive behaviour but I've heard it spoken about often.

I noticed that this bird is being discussed in two different threads, possibly confusing the OP as much as it first confused me. Perhaps @Aveschapines could merge the two threads together for the benefit of all of us. Here's the other thread that I'm referring to.

Not your typical reflection photo, but a reflection photo all the same. Baltimore Oriole hiding from the camera almost as well as the hummingbirds do.

Red-breasted Nuthatch getting bossy over the feeder with the chickadees.

Keep your eyes open for the un-panted bunting. They're even more flashy. 😲

I can't argue the ID here, and not trying to. It looks like a grosbeak to me except for the black stripe, which I can accept as an effect of the dark photo. It's just that @AGwilliam mentioned male and female birds with the male having bold black and white stripes on it's head. Obviously there's some confusion about the male if the female is a Rose-breasted Grosbeak, perhaps that confusion is just on my end. As @akandula's post shows, the male looks nothing like the female so I am curious what bird AGwilliam thinks is the male counterpart to his female grosbeak.

How does the male differ from the female? Male Red-breasted grosbeaks are quite unique looking and wouldn't look anything like their female counterparts. That black stripe on the head doesn't really fit female Rose-breasted Grosbeak, does it?

I'm pretty sure that the better your gear is, the better your auto focus will be, both in speed and accuracy. I stumbled across a video with focusing tips that might be worth looking at, pretty straightforward approach going from beginners to more advanced techniques.

There is no correlation between the focus point and depth of field. Using centre point focus makes it easier to avoid the branches and leaves in front of the birds, but it does not affect DOF at all.

Your logic is sound, Charlie Spencer, isolating the bird and having a blurred background is not necessary for ID purposes, it's an artistic preference. There are disadvantages to more depth of field though. More depth of field means a smaller aperture which means less light reaching the sensor. To compensate for the reduction in light you'll need either a slower shutter speed or a higher ISO setting, or a combination of both, to achieve a balanced exposure. In my opinion, a faster shutter speed is preferred over depth of field and I'd rather achieve that with a larger aperture than with a higher ISO setting. Check out this Depth of Field Calculator to get an idea of what you get for DOF at various distances, apertures, and lens lengths, just pick one of the cameras from the list and change the other numbers around a bit. I've used my camera which has a 1.6 crop factor and a 400mm lens for an example. According to the calculator, if I wanted one foot of depth of field to include a bird that is 25 feet away, I would need an aperture setting of F/22. That would give me roughly six inches in front and six inches behind the bird that was in focus, which would be desirable for your intentions. I'd have to slow my shutter speed down 4x what it could be if my aperture was wide open at F/5.6 though, and slower shutter speeds are typically not desirable for bird photography. Alternately, I could increase my ISO 4x higher but that's not usually desirable either. It's that exposure balancing thing, there's trade offs with each setting and slower shutter speeds and/or higher ISO settings are the trade off for more depth of field from using a smaller aperture.

If you click on your name in the top right of the screen and then click Profile, you should see your older posts and such. Clicking on the title of one will take you to that particular thread.

Yes, I believe that was the consensus. Leucistic or dilute Eastern Bluebird.

Perhaps an Ovenbird? It doesn't have black and white stripes on it's head, but it does have dark and light stripes and is thrush size. Edit- That doesn't really match your description though.