lonestranger

The fruit trees are blossoming and the bees are busy.

Don't feel bad, I posted a photo of a decoy about a decade ago and then argued that it couldn't be a decoy because the bird was moving. Bitter pill to swallow and it didn't go down well, but I was eventually convinced it was a decoy, and yes, I had to concede that decoys will move around the pond due to wind and water current depending on the length of the tether they're anchored with, if any. It's still embarrassing when I think about it. So don't feel bad, @Seanbirds, your embarrassment will last longer than you think it will. With the good people here at Whatbird to remind you about it now and then, the embarrassment could last a long, long, long time, but we'll all get a good chuckle out of it, even you'll be laughing at it, eventually. It'll still be embarrassing though.

Where many decoys are deployed, which was my original thought as well.

Nope, googling John Grimes books that I didn't read doesn't help either. I get the sentiment but have never heard the expression.

I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that @Ryan Tee wants it to be....wait for it....here it comes.... I'd guess that he wants it to be....Identified...

If he lifts that tail, I am out of here.

I would advise against promoting this kind of activity. While photographing birds gathering nesting material may be harmless, birds that are actively nesting should not be bothered by photographers getting close enough to photograph the eggs. While a human observes an active nest, there's a good chance there are predators around that are observing us, and the object of our attention, the nest. That doesn't even address the stress added to the nesting bird when a huge predator is stalking it and it's young. I know that there are situations where photographing a nest with eggs or babies would be acceptable, like the American Robin that builds it's nest right next to the deck in plain sight, but those are exceptions. Actively seeking out nests for photos of eggs is a potential threat to the birds, in my opinion.

I'm going to pass the honour of picking the next photo over to @Seanbirds for this round.

Ready...Aim...

Typo? Bird code? Other?

Welcome to Whatbird, @A-man. It sounds like they may have already got you hooked. If you see your bird again, try to get a photo but if you can't, try to notice things like bill shape and colour(s), leg colour, wing bars, any eye rings or eye lines, etc., etc. Sometimes, more often than you might think, little clues like these can help narrow down the possibilities. As an example, if your bird doesn't have blueish legs, we can rule out Vireos because all Vireos have blueish legs.` *sets the hook a little deeper*

I'm more inclined to think a weasel might be the culprit since weasels are known to cache and hoard their food after killing it.

All good captions, again, but @xpoetmarcr gets the win this time, mostly because I can hear my mother using those very words.

Is it safe to pick up the soap in this kind of shower?

I don't see any of your photos, @BirdNrd, all I see is links. ?

Before I pick a winner.... bump.

I understand your reasoning for not posting your photos directly to Whatbird, the quality lost in upload is very disappointing. I'm not sure you're going to get a lot of views if you use a third party link like dropbox though. While I may click on a link now and then, I am not going to download every photo to my computer that someone else posts just so I can see their photos in an uncompressed state. Much like the links to ebird that some people have started using, if all that is posted is a link to photos, chances are I am not going to see those photos. Like I said, I will click on a link to see a photo once in a while, but I skip right past the majority of links to third party websites. I don't believe I am the only one that prefers to see the photos posted here instead of clicking on a link, so be aware that your links might not get much exposure.

Caption this.

If I am seeing things right, the bird has it's back to the camera and what you are seeing is the white edges of the wing feathers, not the birds belly feathers. I think.

That's what I find interesting about the photos. I KNOW, without a shadow of a doubt, that both these pictures are of the same bird. I watched it land on the wire and no other birds were on or near the wire during the 9 seconds it took to get three photos. There was 5 seconds between the first and second photo, and 4 seconds between the second and third photos, I didn't post the third photo because it is nearly identical to the second photo. I can understand your suspicion of a different bird, but there was only one bird. It didn't look like a bluebird to me either and that's why I posted here, to see what other saw in what I consider a very deceptive photo. Thanks for the input.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I thought someone might have seen a Bobolink like I did, but I guess we just proved how deceiving some photos can be. When I first viewed the photo on the back of the camera, I zoomed in as much as possible and I thought I saw just the edge of some white on the head, and what many others thought were epaulettes, I thought was the white back of the Bobolink. At first I thought MJ had it right and we had heard a Bobolink, until I looked at the second and third photo and saw the obvious Bluebird.

I will most definitely post the other photos but I want to wait and see how others see the photo now that there's a suggestion of it's true identity.

The ID was actually the ABC bird so those that guessed XYZ guessed wrong. That's right, I got the bird's call right this time, MJ is usually the one to correct my hearing when it comes to bird songs. The two birds we considered at first were Eastern Bluebird and Bobolink. How does that sway the your opinion about the photo?