Hasan

For a multitude of reasons, this is decidedly not a Brewer's.

Also, FWIW, the left side of the bird is well seen and illuminated in the fourth and last photo, I have a hard time imagining that flecking would not be visible at all.

That doesn't make sense at all. Eurasian Wigeon has gray flanks, not American, thus I don't know why that would be suggestive of a hybrid. If the observer is a very experienced individual, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on the 'flecking', but honestly I don't see anything at all that would be remotely suggestive of a hybrid.

Looks fine for Eurasian. They are not that rare in the southwest.

Given how difficult the ID is, I might suggest posting to the advanced bird ID facebook page.

Ignoring size and behavior (although size is inherently a structural quality), Reddish Egret is longer-necked, longer legged, and has a longer bill. @IKLland color is often hard to judge and depends on light, I wouldn't really use that as my primary field mark.

Not trying to be mean, but does it? I don't think that I could identify it to a species from this pic. @Charlie Spencer in the field, either species is quite distinctive. Little Blue is considerably smaller and more compact while Reddish Egret has the proportions of a standard Egret. Little Blue is very slow and methodical in its feeding style, while Reddish Egret unmistakably dashes around using its wings to scare fish. Granted I've not birded the overlap zone of these two species so I haven't had to worry about separation, but my impression based on experience with the two species says that they'd be fairly easy to separate in the field.

If you aren't sure what the ID is, don't like the ID. Or, say that you aren't sure if the ID is correct.

Likes are definitely the way to go when concurring with previous posters, unless that particular person has something to add. After someone makes an ID on a bird, the natural assumption should be that the community concurs, unless someone else posts a conflicting suggestion. There's really no need to have multiple posts simply saying "agreed" or "I agree" on a simple ID of a House Sparrow, for instance.

That's a hybrid bird. Since it's about the same size as the Cackling on the right, I'd be inclined to call it Cackling x Snow.

Confirmed.

So.... Here's the empid quiz. It is over ALL NA empids (except for Buff-breasted Flycatcher). So Acadian, Alder, Cordilleran, Dusky, Hammond's, Gray, Least, Pacific-slope, and Willow. I'm at 45%. It's pretty obvious, I don't know western empids. Who is gonna claim the throne in this one? http://benguofilms.com/empids.php It was a little hacky putting this together- I'm going to be improving my workflow in the coming week. It's a bunch of backend stuff so hopefully it won't be noticeable or cause any problems, but once I've situated that correctly it will be much easier to pump out more quizzes.

I like Cooper's as well, but it's hard to say from one photo.

Yes, particularly juvenile and first-cycle birds.

Please don't edit photos before posting. The increased contrast and clarity can make ID really difficult.

Looking at it on a bigger screen now, this is a Herring. My apologies.

1. House Wren 2. Laughing Gull and worn first-cycle Ring-billed Gull. Notice the sharp markings ruling out Herring. Among other things GBBG is much much larger

Red Knot has a shorter bill and a short-legged, fat stumpy look to it.

@millipede I think it was an unrelated question because he was genuinely curious. Nothing wrong with being uncertain of a bird's ID, and anyone who suggests otherwise needs to reevaluate their life choices lol.

It's not a hybrid, this is a totally normal Common Goldeneye. What do you propose?

Common Tern never has primaries this light.

@Charlie Spencer asking the real questions, I see.

A couple of tips: Blue-winged vs Golden-winged: the second syllable of Blue-winged is generally much fatter- almost fart-like. Classic Blue-winged is a two-syllable song, though it can sometimes have more. Classic Golden-winged has upwards of three syllables after the initial syllable, and is not so thick or 'fat' in quality. I've also found Golden-winged is on average more variable and can sing weird songs, though I wonder how much of that is due to hybridization and backcrossing. Hooded vs Magnolia: Hooded has a slightly richer/deeper tone and is typically a tad slower than Magnolia, which is a bit higher and more hurried. Nashville vs Wilson's: Nashville is high pitched and strongly two-parted (with the first part often sounding sqeaky-wheelish, and the second are fast 'chups'), where Wilson's is just a string of random 'chups'. The quality of Wilson's can be close to Hooded or Connecticut.

2nd cycle Herring. It is bleached, but structure and what we can see of the primaries rules out Thayer's.

While any number of scenarios is technically possible, far and away the most likely one is that this is the same bird @DLecy suggested, given the very similar plumage and fairly close distance to the original sighting.