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BetterLekNextTime posted:Can't really tell if those are Least or Western sandpipers from the photo. Both are on the tiny end. Leasts have dull yellow legs and usually more buffy throat/upper chest, and westerns have black legs and usually a clean front. Small sandpipers can be hard even when you have a scope, so don't feel bad if you can't always pin them down to species. I'm not even sure I can rule out Dunlin. Shorebirds can be tough. I checked eBird and all three of those species have been reported from Bolsa Chica in the last week. I don't think I've ever been to Bolsa Chica, but Newport Back Bay a bit to the south has always treated me well. It's been raining for weeks here so I'm really jealous of anyone in a dry location right now.
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Jan 30, 2018 00:42
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re: Great Backyard Bird Count: Also, since I never get tired of bragging about my yard list:  
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Feb 12, 2018 23:50
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This is the current best deal in binoculars, IMHO. Pretty similar quality to the Nikon Monarch 7's from everything I've read, but Roger's is clearing them out for half price. I bought a pair and went out and bought another pair to keep in my car. I wouldn't recommend anything else from Bushnell (They have an amazing number of mediocre models), but these are great.
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Jun 15, 2018 18:44
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I can't remember where I read it but I recall reading that Chickadees in the frozen north feed heavily on dead animals in the winter. I seem to recall seeing photos.
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Jun 23, 2018 19:47
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Platystemon posted:How do you go looking for owls, anyway? I do a fair amount of owling. Generally my process is to go out a few hours before sunrise and use a bluetooth speaker to playback songs in hopes of getting a response. Generally I'm looking for Saw-Whet owls and I've never heard them spontaneously singing in the seasons I'm looking, but they'll often sing and/or call when they hear the playback. They're almost impossible to see, however. I'd say I get a decent look at one of ever fifteen or so that I have within 50ft of me. I've had mixed luck with other owls. Barred are super aggressive. Great-Horned generally seem apathetic about responding, although I did play a song briefly at my house once and have one sit in a tree above me and sing for hours afterwards. Western Screech will respond. Barn Owls usually hunt in flight, so they'll just circle you in the darkness and take off. Finding owls at dusk or at roosts are pretty difficult in most circumstances. Robins have been my best bets for finding roosting owls in most cases, actually. Jays usually find the owls too, but they're so loud anyway that it can be difficult to tell if they actually are upset about something interesting. If you hear a robin in the woods just giving its alarm call over and over its worth checking out.
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Jul 13, 2018 00:50
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Cythereal posted:The fall migration has finally hit my neck of the woods. You know it's autumn around these parts when catbirds are mewing from the bushes. *Looks at the calendar* Are you in South America? I would've expected southbound neotropical migrants to have peaked weeks ago anywhere in the US. Heck, I had my first Trumpeter Swans, Brant, and large flocks of Dunlin here today which might as well make it the first day of winter.
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Oct 31, 2018 06:12
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BetterLekNextTime posted:I'm back to bad luck chasing birds. On Monday I went after a Nelson's Sparrow that usually showed up at high tide. Waited more than an hour with more than a dozen other birders, and nothing. Of course, get home and see the county eBird alert come in, and a bunch of people saw it soon after I left. I had this same thing happen near Monterrey, CA a few years ago, although I had better luck. Stood on a dike for quite a long time staring at a marsh with a bunch of birders. People finally started leaving and two Nelson's Sparrows popped up exactly where we'd been looking the whole time. Nelson's Sparrows are stealthy to an amazing degree.
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Jan 24, 2019 18:36
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Esme posted:Sorry if this isn't exactly on topic, but does anyone know what Northern California/SF Bay Area bird makes a horrible high pitched, monotone cheep that goes on in a steady rhythm for minutes at a time? It's been waking me up every morning since Sunday and I'd like to put a name to all the annoyance I'm feeling. I'm guessing towhee, but it's so much louder and longer than any towhee I've heard before that I wondered if it could be something else. House Sparrow? (Click call on this link and see if it matches)
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Apr 12, 2019 14:54
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BetterLekNextTime posted:Nice! 60% of my Pygmy Owls are like loving ghosts in the woods. Just a whistle without an origin. The other 40% are right loving there just staring at you with those mean eyes. Really odd species that way. Good luck in the Blue Ridge. Everywhere I've been along there has been absolutely amazing and you should find plenty of breeding warblers this time of year. I was supposed to fly to Tucson next week for my first trip to SE AZ. Sadly work has been poo poo this year and I didn't confirm I could take the trip until too late to really make it worth it. Maybe next year 
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May 25, 2019 05:04
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torgeaux posted:Back in here to get some identification help. It's the overbite beak that keeps throwing me. Location would be helpful to be certain, but it looks like a Red Crossbill. If you're not in North America it may be a different species if you're in Eurasia or something. That crossed bill is used to pry open pinecones. There's actually quite a few subspecies each with a bill that is uniquely adapted to open pinecones of specific species of trees.
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Jun 25, 2019 04:40
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Baneling Butts posted:Hi thread, an identification question for you! I was walking along Venice Beach in LA yesterday and this little guy landed in the sand: My gut says this is a Lesser Goldfinch, but the lack of black on the wings is wrong unless there's some juvenile plumage in not aware of.
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Oct 27, 2019 22:05
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YggiDee posted:When a songbird fails to migrate south for the winter, is there anything you can reasonably do for it or do you just put out extra seed and pray? My mom's been having a chipping sparrow at the feeder for the last few days and we're in Southwestern Ontario. He should not be here. You sure it's not an American Tree Sparrow? They look similar and that would be more likely in Ontario in winter. Birds are surprisingly resilient. If they can find enough food, a sparrow would probably be just fine through the winter. I live in a place where it fairly frequently drops below freezing and yet we have Anna's Hummingbirds, kinglets, three species of warblers, etc. throughout the winter.
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Dec 20, 2019 05:17
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StrixNebulosa posted:I've been entertaining myself by reading bird facts and lookin' at their pictures on all about birds lately. Does anyone know of a similar website that contains birds from the rest of the world? It's USA-focused and that's great, but I want to know more about more birds. Cornell just put Birds Of The World online. It's a pay service, but some library systems and schools have subscriptions and you can access it through their proxy. I believe eBird users who submit something like 1000 checklists per year get free access? Nice username, btw. I actually use that as my Wi-Fi hotspot for my phone.
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Apr 4, 2020 04:33
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lord funk posted:My birding time in Asia was really helped by https://ebird.org/explore. Search by region was invaluable for help identifying birds in a country where you don't have a guide book. Finger Prince posted:Yeah that's pretty invaluable and we use it almost every time we travel. Guidebooks are great, but "what do people actually see in this specific location" really helps when you're dealing with completely unfamiliar birds. I must say that I rolled my eyes a bit at the Merlin app because of how often I've seen people rely on it's photo ID feature above common sense, but when I was on a cruise that stopped in the Bahamas, Mexico, and Honduras last year it was incredible. It's basically a full field guide complete with sounds and it will allow you to sort birds by occurrence likelihood. The occurrence data is fantastic because it can really help narrow down an ID where one or more species may look similar and have overlapping range, but one is way more likely than the others. It looks like they don't have packs for most of Asia yet, but they're expanding pretty rapidly and have a sizable chunk of the world covered.
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Apr 19, 2020 23:24
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XeeD posted:Is there a good resource for IDing a bird by its call on mobile? I keep hearing one across the way that I can't see and its bugging me that I can't figure out what it is. I already know its probably just going to be some sort of pigeon or owl, but my brain needs to know. People have built apps that try to do this, but I don't think it's at the point where it's reliable at all. The best thing to do is make and audio recording with your phone, either by using a note app or by just recording a video, and post it somewhere where people who can ID birds by sound can listen to it.
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May 2, 2020 22:14
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BetterLekNextTime posted:I'd look at Great Horned Owl and Eurasian Collared Dove too. Yea, Eurasian-Collared Dove is what came to my mind if Mourning Dove is ruled out. Not sure if they're really made it quite to where XeeD lives though. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eurasian_Collared-Dove/sounds
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May 5, 2020 00:51
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I had to chase off an Eastern Gray Squirrel (invasive here on the west coast) from the Steller's Jay nest under my deck this morning. The general population would be really horrified if they knew how many cute baby animals are killed by other cute animals in their backyards every year.
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May 26, 2020 19:27
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The other species to look at is juvenile Red-shoulder Hawk, which looks fairly similar to juvenile Coopers. Tail looks better for Coopers to me, but I'm very inexperienced with Red-shouldered.
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Jun 13, 2020 02:16
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BetterLekNextTime posted:Wait, there’s still a critterquest thread? Yea, Broad-Winged was actually my first thought, but I dismissed it based on location and (presumably recent?) date. It just looks compact. The amount of barring on the tail looks much better for Broad-Winged than Red-Shouldered as well. Looking at where the wingtips end compared to the tail, I don't think there's any way it's an Coopers or Sharp-Shinned.
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Jun 13, 2020 04:34
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I can think of twice where birders in Washington where birders have escalated questions about county line locations up through various levels of government because various maps didn't actually agree.
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Sep 17, 2020 21:28
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I just had a big effort post written up and accidently reloaded the page and lost it You can get "holy poo poo" views for $500 or less (sometimes a lot less). In that range I'd recommend looking into: Nikon Monarch 7 8x30 (eye relief may be a little tight if she wears glasses) Nikon Monarch 7 8x42 (bigger and heavier than the above) Vortex Viper 8x42 (sadly, they no longer make an 8x32). You can drive yourself a bit insane trying to find the "best" binoculars at any given price point, but those are all very common models from companies with very good track records.
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Nov 15, 2020 05:50
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Coming from $20 bins, even a decent $200 binocular will be an incredible improvement.
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Nov 16, 2020 05:52
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BetterLekNextTime posted:Kites are good content. I am so grumpy I love in as place workout any Kites All my CBCs were canceled this year. I kind of dread them, but it feels really weird to not do any.
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Dec 20, 2020 08:34
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BetterLekNextTime posted:I love 'em -- the only one I was nervous about was when I took over as a territory leader last year. The upshot of this year was that since the itinerary was cut so much shorter, my wife actually came along. She's not into doing a full day with limited bathrooms and extended visits to the water treatment plant, but a walk along a trashy urban creek and community college campus was more appealing for her. It was super foggy and cold (for the Bay Area) but we saw some cool stuff. The Wood ducks were apparently the only ones counted. I didn't go to the zoom countdown but I heard the species total was actually really high for our circle so the covid restrictions didn't impact species numbers but I've got to think it will affect the numbers of birds seen. I like the birding. I actually used to have a route that was all weird suburban places, where you'd be thrilled to find something fairly common like a Yellow-Rumped Warbler, Wood Duck, or Wilson's Snipe. The part I hate is the part I suck at, namely all the coordination and crap, and there's always some weird conflict with family Christmas stuff I have to work around. I never considered the Kingfishers would eat Crayfish. That's pretty awesome. waffy posted:We've had some good luck with rare birds here in southeast PA lately, with a state-first Tundra Bean-Goose that's been around for the past few days. I got to go see it yesterday morning along with an Allen's Hummingbird at a feeder within a 10 minute drive from there. It always makes me shake my head whenever I see an Allen's Hummingbird record on the east coast. Washington state, only a few hundred miles from their breeding range has one accepted record and it's from 1894. BeastOfExmoor fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Dec 21, 2020 |
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Dec 21, 2020 04:31
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BetterLekNextTime posted:Yeah that's weird. Although maybe there are more that just get written off as Rufous? I just saw someone mention something else that was surprisingly uncommon, like Eastern Phoebe (probably misremembering) or something that is fairly regular here in CA but almost never gets to WA. I'd assume so, yeah. You'd basically have to photograph a lot of Rufous and hope you get lucky. Almost all the eastern neo-tropical migrants are very rare in Washington. For instance, we had our first record of Scarlet Tanager in 2020. Eastern Phoebe is less than annual in the entire state. On the plus side, if you want to do a little driving things like Gyrfalcon and Snowy Owl are possible every winter.
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Jan 13, 2021 18:53
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Tears In A Vial posted:Thanks. Yeah I understand. It was just my first time reaching out for help. wanted to know what something was and it was a bit of knock to be yelled at for not being able to differentiate two identical looking birds. Felt like an avian helldump. my partner had a much nicer time asking on a webforum. perhaps my mistake was talking to a facebook group. Your experience seemed really off to me, but given the bird you posted I wonder if location has something to do with it. Are you in the UK? My understanding from talking to UK birders is there's more of a culture of elitism there, especially regarding IDs. Apparently, for instance, it's a big faux pas to carry a field guide when out birding. I've had good luck with this group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BirdIDgroupoftheworld There's another group run by the American Birding Association that's: https://www.facebook.com/groups/whatsthisbird It's focused more on North America, but questions from around the world are allowed. The only time I've seen people get a bit aggravated are when people get adamant about wrong-IDs or refuse to accept a correct ID.
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Feb 3, 2021 23:58
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Pablo Bluth posted:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/31/twitching-british-birdwatching-wild-side The 2013 doc is on YouTube as well. It's...something. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tj0bxBC-TE FWIW, I'm friends with many British expats and birded with more and they've all been super nice and chill so I've always assumed a lot of the bad culture is from a small portion of the birders.
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Feb 4, 2021 00:27
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Owlkill posted:Is it possible to get a camera that would be decent enough for zoom shots of garden birds for less than around £200 (roughly $275)? The Canon/Panasonic/Nikon superzoom cameras are all perfectly capable of this. Feature increases have been fairly minimal in recent years, so a model a year or two old can take pretty similar photos to this years model. BetterLekNextTime posted:I think there might have been some super sales for lower end dslr kits last holiday season that fit in your range? I didn't consider DSLR, but if you were able to find a cheap used Canon body and a cheap EF-S 55-250mm STM lens, that's also an excellent combo that might come close to your price range and give you more flexibility for upgrade in the future.
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Feb 4, 2021 23:25
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Tears In A Vial posted:And after checking the pictures, I'm happy with the Marsh Harrier identification yesterday I'm no expert on European birds (haven't even ever set foot there, sadly), so grain of salt and all, but I'm getting more of a Buteo family vibe off this one. No obvious facial "disk" like Harriers have, wider wings (front to back), and shorter tail are the field marks I'm seeing. Looks like Common Buzzard is the buteo most likely to be seen in the UK in winter so I'd compare with that, especially if you have more photos.
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Feb 5, 2021 23:41
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BetterLekNextTime posted:I’d guess coops but that wouldn’t stand up in court. But male coops/female sharpie can be tough Agree with all of these. Townsend's Solitare is actually a pretty good bird for the western Washington lowlands, especially in winter. They're not quite rare, but definitely pretty uncommon. Eurasian Wigeon will almost always be in the presence of lots of American Wigeons. Generally if you find a group of 50+ Wigeon in this area you can usually find a Eurasian in the mix.
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Jan 10, 2023 17:12
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