TKbird

Cracked 300 with a nice look at a Least Bittern! The last 100 only took me six years, compared to ten from 100 to 200. Nice. Also added Stilt and Buff-breasted Sandpipers shortly after thanks to a day of birding the MA coast. Haven't had three lifers in the same month since last November!!

Am I missing something? @Seanbirds

But seriously, he hasn't posted in 42 days! Hope he's all right. Edit: He's still reporting on eBird, so that's a good sign!

There are also 6 Traill's reports in the range 8/6-24 in the radius, so I'm not the only one thinking of that... ?

Really?? I mean, you're probably right as the local, I'm just not seeing it on the eBird reports. The ratio of WIFL to ALFL is certainly higher in August then it is year-round in yours and surrounding counties. But within a ~70 mile radius of your dwelling there are 5 ALFL reports in the range 8/12-26 and no WIFL reports (except yours) in the range 8/6-28.

Here's what I'm looking at. Red pin in the center of WIFL is the location of the sighting.

I'm leery about disagreeing with @Hasan, but in the absence of other opinions I would have pegged this as a FISP. My main observations are similar to @The Bird Nuts: 1) Adult CHSP eyelines are reliably very dark. 2) CHSPs here in the northeast US have minimal eye rings. 3) FISP is a particularly variable sp., and the facial pattern of this birds looks within the range of variation to me. 4) Giss is FISP for me.

Since WIFL is not dramatically more likely than ALFL in the area, I'd say this is definitely best left as Traill's. It's widely accepted that WIFL and ALFL are not reliably distinguishable by appearance.

It's pretty hit or miss. Migrators and elevation species are the main attractions, naturally. DEJU, PUFI, BTBW, BTNW, BLBW, and YRWA are all reliable morning singers. Nice to add WIFL and RBGU to the summit hotspot though. I'm assuming you heard the former? Flyover for the gull or did it land? Yep, I'm 5 mins from VT and 15 mins from NY!

Good example of why Traill's Flycatchers are not considered identifiable to species by appearance with high confidence. Can be probably one or the other, but never definite, so best left as slash if reporting to eBird.

https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/64378911 https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/179541381 https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/351079041 https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/242251741 https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/237980541 Confidently distinguishing between BAGO and the bird posted (if it is a COGO) is beyond my level of experience. To quote Sibley, "Identifying female goldeneyes is extremely challenging. Differences are subtle, subjective, and inconsistent, but experienced observers still build up a “template” of expected impressions that allow them to identify the species with confidence. Describing these differences, and identifying individual birds from photos, can be very challenging because the process of identification relies so heavily on gestalt."

The head shape looks OK for either to me. I'll stick an @Tony Leukering on here. ?

@AlexGeorge And solicit a description of the bird? ? My Movie.mp4

+1 to the homeschooled list. My brother even married another homeschooler. ? Wow, that's substantially larger than the college I went to!

Haha wow! No, not really, I'm very north and very west. I rarely get down Springfield's way!

I think it might actually be the opposite effect in this case, as Schenectady has more people but less than 1/4 the area of my nearby county! ?

... five Killdeers ?. Also, they only have one photo uploaded in the last 7 days?? I guess I'm spoiled by a particularly active county, as we have 68 (including one of 46 Killdeers!).

You can... with a workaround. EBird has a special "List building" checklist protocol that you can use to create checklists that don't affect anything but your own account (its intended use is pre-eBird life lists). If you create a separate account and make a list of all the species you DON'T want alerts for and then sign up for needs alert for that account, you can achieve custom alerts. I don't think this will negatively impact eBird in any way. If it does, well, I guess we'll just hope eBird adds custom alerts as a regular option soon. https://support.ebird.org/en/support/solutions/articles/48000804866-enter-your-pre-ebird-life-list#anchorListBuilding

Have no fear, there are plenty out east! As @Quiscalus quiscula says, the population may just be thin in places. I'm in western MA and they are numerous. Very true.

EBird's own support page states, "We encourage eBirders to make use of [spuhs and slashes]"... yet many flag, even when both/all relevant species don't! I've never understood the logic behind which are selected as non-flagging options (the same goes for subspecies, especially expected, field-identifiable ones). That said, every spuh/slash I've submitted has been accepted without a problem (even though I rarely add comments on them) including several that had not previously been used in the county. And yes, if you're wondering, I do check back to make sure they were confirmed. ?

Hello all, I thought I would try to breathe a little life into this section of the forum. I was just reviewing a video I took on 6/22/16 and noticed a bird calling in the background that I believe is a Eurasian Marsh-Harrier. However, there were lots of Black-headed Gulls around, juveniles of which have a variable begging call somewhat similar to the harrier's call. I thought I would get some opinions on whether my ID is definitive! Included are my recording, similar harrier recordings from Macaulay, a begging gull from Xeno-canto, and Macaulay-format spectrograms for the first and last of these. https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/167661641 https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/351328011 https://www.xeno-canto.org/591450 -TKbird Marsh-Harrier.m4a

Try Merlin Bird ID by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology instead, I gather it generally does a good job.

Peeps and related species have lots of plumages and are notoriously difficult. I have found the two attached files useful, although they don't discuss the larger relatives much. p00853-p00876.pdf v40n4p40w1.pdf

Thanks! I will leave it as Traill's with a note then. Interesting point!

Thanks @Tony Leukering. What would you recommend for eBird? I read in the "Banders' Guide To Identification of Empidonax Flycatchers In Northeastern North America" (McKinney, 1988) that the species can't confidently be distinguished, and also found this more recent page noting that the Bird Banding Laboratory advises the same.