lonestranger

The two links to the photos work and both show as being unconfirmed. The link to the checklist shows the single photo of the two Mottled Ducks together. That's what I see but I don't have an eBird account so others may see things differently.

birdie #11: ????⬛⬛ https://birdiegame.net/

Grrrr. I did NOT solve today's puzzle in one guess, this is actually my forth guess. I referred to the banding code list after my third guess, but when I went back to BRDL, the page reloaded and my first three guesses were gone. BRDL 128 ????

Maybe not my best, but definitely my most unique Red-tailed Hawk photo.

No luck for me today. birdie #10: ?????? https://birdiegame.net/

Ruby-crowned KInglet

BRDL 127 ???? ???? ???? ????

birdie #9: ????⬛⬛ https://birdiegame.net/

Eastern Kingbird

BRDL 126 ???? ???? ???? ????

House Sparrow?

Just the opposite for me today. I had to go all the way through my list of birds to find out there was only one option that had my two letters in a suitable position that would work. BRDL 125 ???? ???? ???? ????

Welcome to Whatbird, @kman1960. If your bird had the same colored beak as a Northern Cardinal, I think it's safe to say that it was a Cardinal. I don't believe any other bird has that orange/red type of beak to confuse it with. They can look totally different when they molt all their head feathers at once, but their beak is unique.

I think I'll go chase some birds away by pointing my camera at them before@Charlie Spencer suggests that I do something less pleasant.

We're you looking at the right photo? Sorry, I had to ask. After all, you were looking in the wrong car for your binoculars so it's not too much of a stretch to think you might be looking for the Kinglet in the wrong photo. ?

Belted Kingfisher

I agree with your summary, @Aveschapines, and the article. Good intentions can often have negative effects. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that when it comes helping the birds, the less we interfere, the better off the birds usually are. .

I'd like to redo the cross country trip of my youth. We went on a family vacation back when I was 12 or 13 years old and drove from Toronto to the LA area of California where we spent a week visiting Mom's sister. The we drove up the west coast to the Victoria BC area and spent a week visiting Dad's sister before driving east across Canada and back to Ontario. I was already interested birds back then and remember walking through various parks with the binoculars around my neck, I don't remember the birds I saw though. I don't remember it as being a fun trip, way too much time stuck in the car and our camping stops along the way were more for cheap accommodations than recreational camping. I'd like to do it over again and focus more on the sights/birds along the way, unlike Dad who was more focused on getting the driving part over with as quick as possible so he could visit with his sister. I think it'd be nice to spend more time at the Grand Canyon than the 15 minute rest stop break that Dad allowed for. Oh well, it wasn't a birding trip but it would have been nice if it could have been. Anyone willing to pay for my gas so I can try a do-over trip?

BRDL 124 ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ????

Please disregard my Spoiler Alert from earlier today. During a discussion with Zoroark, I realized that I misinterpreted the code for the wrong bird today, so my whole line of thought earlier was flawed. Sorry for any confusion my confusion caused.

No, the mention of BAGO was just an example they used and not relevant to today's BRDL. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused.

Using my over active imagination here, but I wonder what the effect would be if a Mourning Dove took a bath in a shallow pan of colored hummingbird nectar. My imagination could picture it looking like the bird in question here. I don't know if the dye in store bought nectar would stain like this, or if a bird would bath in such sticky bath water, but it's an imaginatively wild possibility.

SPOILER ALERT??? It's just an explanation of banding codes that explains my earlier confusion, but If you don't want to risk what might be more of a hint than I think it is, don't read beyond here. POSSIBLE SPOILER BELOW. When codes collide, usually all of the involved species take ad hoc codes. But in some cases where one species is rare or has a limited distribution, and the other is commoner or more widely distributed, the ad hoc code may be only used for the less common species. This is illustrated by the last example above, where Barrow's Goldeneye keeps the basic code BAGO even though it could be confused with Barnacle Goose, which gets an ad hoc code.

I struggled with this one. It looks like this code could apply to two different birds. I guess I'd better check the banding code list and see which rules they used to distinguish which of the two birds they assigned to this particular code. BRDL 123 ???? ???? ???? ???? ????

I think the bird is stained. The fact that the feet and legs are colored makes me think it's not a plumage issue.