chipperatl

Possible descriptors: Hey I don’t have one of those! What are you looking at? My eyes are up here!

I signed up for eBird to report Common Nighthawks calling. Going back through pictures, and creating older checklists, my earliest is Eastern Kingbird.

Brown-headed Cowbird flags as rare for this time of the year. I found a farm field with what I estimated as at least 500 of them. How many Kirtland's Warblers could be spared just by this flock "disappearing"? https://ebird.org/checklist/S77090988

Bird with head down?

eBird Rare Bird Alerts Sign up for local listserv - http://birding.aba.org if you are on Facebook check to see if there is a rare bird alert page there for your state/area some locations have text or Whatsapp lists if you can find your way into those. get out a lot and eventually you will find stuff. ABBA - Always Be Birding Always

Upload to YouTube, or I think Flickr does video also.

Cackling Goose

Diving Mallards

I know our reviewer is a busy person, so maybe he hasn't gotten back to me to change these if I am wrong. If not I'll leave as is. Just looking to see if anyone here can point out if I am wrong in my ID, so I can correct it. All are in lower peninsula Michigan. Hermit Thrush - tagged as out of season as it was January 1st, 2017. Tundra Swan - tagged as out of season May 24, 2013. A couple of us disagreed with him on this one as Tundra Swan. It was a Big Day bird, so there is some ego involved. May 2nd, 2018. Blackburnian Warbler - now th

Gotta love the ones that don’t fit perfectly. The far right one has the small bill and large, indented white patch. So the two far left and one next to it have a good case for Cackler also based on size. The eBird team in Michigan says we should not expect to see parvipes Canada Geese here. That is the only other option I can see for the two you can see for the two with bills showing. It doesn’t look like parvipes is even an eBird option anymore.

Also posted in Lifers, but it was easily my best of the day.

I don’t think there is a way to quantify it, but I think I see more eBird rarities in the winter than I do the rest of the year. In the past few days I’ve seen Cackling Goose at a small cow pond, 4 Snow Geese lifting with Canada Geese out of a farm field, 4 Surf Scoters on the local large lake, and flock of 50 plus lifer Common Redpoll between a farm field and a factory. Traffic tends to be less in the winter, and if you bundle up you can still walk some trails.

Finally!!!! Common Redpoll. I almost ignored this flock of 50+ birds I drove by, thinking "More American Goldfinches", but then I've never seen a flock that big of them. Turned around and they gave me great looks.

I always liked this. Northern Pintail flying in CANG formation.

Female Ring-necked Pheasant Female Scarlet Tanager Long-tailed Duck

Birds on/under the feeders in south central Michigan Hairy, Downy, Red-headed and Red-bellied Woodpeckers. Northern Flicker. White-breasted and Red-breasted Nuthatches. Wild Turkey. Mourning Dove. Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Blue Jay. American Crow. Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse. Carolina Wren. European Starling. Gray Catbird, Brown Thrasher. House and Purple Finch, Pine Siskin, American Goldfinch. Chipping Sparrow, Clay-colored Sparrow, Field Sparrow, American Tree Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, White-crowned and White-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Eastern Towhee. Orc

Thank you. Not sure how I messed that one up.

Apparently my method only works on iPad. I couldn’t get it to open in a new tab in Safari on my Mac.

461. Wilson's Snipe

456. Veery 457. Clay-colored Sparrow 458. Semipalmated Sandpiper 459. Black-billed Cuckoo 460. Bobolink

451. Common Eider 452. Gray-cheeked Thrush 453. Snail Kite 454. Acadian Flycatcher 455. Willow Flycatcher