Brant? {iBird]

[Administrator]

Sleuth thinks its a Brant. Or Not a Bird. What do you think?

Thanks

Mitch

[The Bird Nuts]

Looks like a domestic duck with some Muscovy in it.

[akiley]

Agreed. Domestic Muscovy Duck.

[birdbrain22]

Wow... how does Not a bird beat out Wood Duck? 

 

[Administrator]

31 minutes ago, birdbrain22 said:

Wow... how does Not a bird beat out Wood Duck? 

 

This was posted back in September and I completely forgot about it. I think Sleuth is counting the horizontal wire as a part of the bird, and got confused. It clearly shows the limits of Artificial Intelligence. The reason it didn't guess the Domestic Muscovy Duck is it was never trained to recognize that hybrid, or any hybrid for that matter. But next time we train it we'll include them. 

Thanks,

Mitch

[The Bird Nuts]

Domestic ducks aren't necessarily hybrids.  They can be pure (Muscovy or Mallard), but they are bred by humans to look a certain way, lay more eggs, etc.

[Sean C]

I agree with domestic Muscovy Duck.

[Administrator]

On 11/2/2018 at 12:56 PM, The Bird Nuts said:

Domestic ducks aren't necessarily hybrids.  They can be pure (Muscovy or Mallard), but they are bred by humans to look a certain way, lay more eggs, etc.

Muscovy are not recognized as native birds by the AOU or ABA, correct? So they don't belong in a field guide.

[IvoryBillHope]

4 hours ago, Administrator said:

Muscovy are not recognized as native birds by the AOU or ABA, correct? So they don't belong in a field guide.

Muscovy Ducks are ABA countable as both a natural vagrant to south Texas and as a feral population in Florida.  They most definitely belong in a field guide in my opinion. 

[Administrator]

Thank you IvoryBll. I didn't realize until I looked that iBird and whatbird has the Muscovy Duck in its database. I don't see any any white birds in the Photo section and the General Description says "wild birds are all dark". Sound like its wrong.

[IvoryBillHope]

1 hour ago, Administrator said:

Thank you IvoryBll. I didn't realize until I looked that iBird and whatbird has the Muscovy Duck in its database. I don't see any any white birds in the Photo section and the General Description says "wild birds are all dark". Sound like its wrong.

Wild birds in south Texas and the Neotropics are all dark with white wing patches, it's the domestic/feral ones like those in Florida and city parks elsewhere that can be mostly/entirely white.  When we talk about wild Muscovies I think we mean those that still naturally occur in the tropics and we exclude the Florida population even though they are technically ABA countable. 

[akiley]

In the iBird page, the illustration looks okay for a wild bird, but all of the real photos are domestic.