lonestranger

Baltimore Oriole

BRDL 154 ???? ???? ????

birdie ? #37: ??⬛⬛⬛⬛ https://birdiegame.net/

I watched that very same behavior just yesterday, @ricardo00. The female Killdeer was very vocal while displaying and then the male flew in and coupled with the female a few times. Killdeer will also do the broken wing routine to draw attention away from the nest but if they're displaying their breeding parts, it's probably for breeding purposes.

That one took longer, and used more resources than it should have. I was more stumped after I got the third letter than before. BRDL 153 ???? ???? ???? ???? ????

birdie ? #36: ?????? https://birdiegame.net/

I like trying to see if I can ID the bird. As you well know, I need all the help I can get, so I'll take it any way I can find it. ?

Did I confuse you @Charlie Spencer? When @Jessica2008 repeated @robert2008 the first time, she embed a link that wasn't in @robert2008's post. When she repeated @robert2008's second post she once again embedded a link that wasn't originally there, thus the trend I was referring to. Does that help with your confusion, or did something else confuse you? *knows its easily done*

I'm seeing a trend here. Perhaps @Jessica2008 could teach @robert2008 how to embed a link so she doesn't have to come back and do it herself.

That's a good strategy that I hadn't considered. Like @Charlie Spencer, I sometimes make empty guesses when I'm stumped. Your suggestion not only creates a chance to get lucky on a wild guess, it can point you to, or away from, a specific part of the name. ?

I guess I should have looked further than AAB for southern birds. Wikipedia shows MANY Southern named birds. I didn't see any crossovers though, no Northern and Southern birds seem to share a common name so why bother? Eastern and Western birds share common names and are usually associated with different ranges, but that doesn't seem to apply to Northern and Southern birds. ?‍♂️

Nice shot of a mostly back-lit bird, IKLland. I can't help but wonder what you could have achieved if that beautiful lighting had been coming from behind the camera instead of from behind the bird. Nice work for the angle you were shooting from though. ? Sorry, I don't do ratings/likes on request but since it sounded like you were looking for a pat on the back for a shot well taken, there you go. ?

I thought about saving this photo for the R's because of the Red-winged Blackbird riding on the Osprey's shoulder. ?

How about removing the word Northern from the name of birds that don't have a Southern counterpart, an idea that I believe was previously suggested somewhere else on the forum. When I go to All About Birds and type Northern into their search engine I get a list of MANY Northern birds. When I type Southern into the same search engine I get ZERO results. Why the heavy loading of Northern birds when there's no Southern birds to balance it out. Rhetorical question of course, unless you happen to know the answer.

BRDL 152 ???? ???? ???? ???? ????

birdie ? #35: ?????⬛ https://birdiegame.net/

It was only the beginning of the week that I realized that you can revisit previous photos/pieces of the bird by clicking on any of the previous result boxes and ever since then I have been wondering if there's a way to see the pieces put together as you go? I can't find one but it took me 30ish games to figure out the photo thing so maybe I'm overlooking something that someone else has already discovered. Any insight out there?

Basically I do the same thing I do when IDing in the field or from a photo after the fact. I guess until I get it right. ? I usually start out with a few guesses, even if they're wild guesses and usually solve it, if I do, with the assistance of iBird's index and it's thumbnail photos before going deeper into the guide, when needed. I have solved a few unassisted, mostly local birds, but there's too many birds that I don't even consider if I don't see their name/photo on a list for me not to use a list most of the time.

I agree with @Aveschapines, Merlin is a great tool, sometimes. It can also be a misleading tool if it points you in the wrong direction. Having said that, when getting conflicting suggestions like that @Lesliemorris, I'd put more faith in the suggestions that come from photos of a perched bird in a more normal position that shows most of the birds features over suggestions that come from photos of the same bird in an unusual posture that might hide or contort some of the birds features. As an example, I think Pewees usually hold themselves in an upright position like your two perched photos, which also show the bird's features quite well. Merlin might confuse the same bird in the nest for something else because it can't see a key feature, or possibly because of the bird's more horizontal position with its tail pointing upward instead of down, something which might be more typical of other similar looking birds. Just tossing a few pennies into the well of birding apps without really knowing if my coins are worth that much, or knowing what I'm talking about.

I can figure out one possibility for your fourth guess but I have no idea if it's the only possibility. I can't come up with another possibility but I put that down to my limitations, not the limitation of possibilities. ?

BRDL 151 ???? ???? ???? ????

I am sure that many/most already know this but for those that might not have figured it out yet, you can type a generic family name and the game will provide you with a full list of the possibilites that match. It won't help if the bird in question doesn't have an associated family in its name though. As an unrelated example, if you know you're looking at a goose and you type goose as your guess to help in your selection, you wouldn't find your bird in the list if you were looking at a Brant.

This series belongs in the Almost Good thread as much as it does it here. My exposure was good...for the landscape shots I took previous to these, but F/16 at 1/500 of a second probably wasn't the best settings for in-flight photos. They're still good enough to show more tenacity of the small birds, this time chasing a Bald Eagle as it approaches.

I am always amazed by the tenacity of small birds when it comes to chasing the big birds away, especially when the big guys could literally eat up and spit out the small guys.

birdie ? #34: ?????⬛ https://birdiegame.net/ I was fairly confident in each and every guess but I had to see it's namesake before I got it right. Could have had it two guesses earlier if I hadn't missed the logical clue of which end of the name some of my yellow came from.