Confirm My New Birds

[Dan P]

Taken 11-15-2020 afternoon at Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve in Van Nuys, CA.

These are new species for me, so I want to confirm my IDs.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Downy Woodpecker

Northern Shoveler

Thanks.

[Tony Leukering]

Correct on all

[Dan P]

Thanks Tony.

That Shoveler was quite a ways off, but something about it didn't look like a mallard (of which there were a lot) to my naked eye -- maybe the way it was flying.

[IKLland]

Note the small size and small bill on the downy, which eliminates hairy

[Seanbirds]

7 hours ago, IKLland said:

Note the small size and small bill on the downy, which eliminates hairy

That's a good clue, but unless you have plenty of experience with both, it can be hard to compare size in the field.

[IKLland]

1 hour ago, Seanbirds said:

That's a good clue, but unless you have plenty of experience with both, it can be hard to compare size in the field.

Ok thanks

[Seanbirds]

2 hours ago, IKLland said:

Ok thanks

Bill length is also something to look for.

[MichaelLong]

The thing I leard about a while back is that is you can flip the bill around and it does not go past the eye= downy. Past the eye= hairy

[IKLland]

11 hours ago, MichaelLong said:

The thing I leard about a while back is that is you can flip the bill around and it does not go past the eye= downy. Past the eye= hairy

But you would really need to be holding the bird though 

[Charlie Spencer]

1 hour ago, IKLland said:

But you would really need to be holding the bird though 

Flip it visually.  Another way of saying it is, if the bill looks like it's about half the length of the head, Downy.  If the bill appears almost the same length as the head, Hairy.

By comparing a part of a bird to another part of the same bird, you're not dependent on having another species around to compare to.  In this case, we don't care that there's no Hairy around to compare overall sizes; we can compare the bird's bill to its own head.

This works with body parts on plenty of other species too.