Ed Forum birdwatching 2008

[EHocking]

Well, if you have that much free time, you can always clean up after me again.

No, no, no. Quite happy to have this one out in public. The listing is yours. 1. you instigated it and 2. you've got the experience in taxonomy with your job. I'll definitely defer on those choices. As for cleaning up after you, HAH, I think I've caused enough problems with additions to your list! But that said, the pivot table

When I added Bruto's snow geese, I actually wrote "Snow geese", which shows up as a separate species. This is because all previous reports erroneously were placed in the genus Branta for some reason. It should be Anser, I guess, unless Clements has them in Chen. I will check this when I get home.

The The avibase search on Snow Goose (purportedly Clements 8, but you can also choose Clements 6) has all Snow Goose entries as anser, if that's any help.

Pheasant is also listed twice, for some reason. There may be a space or something in the name column, if that matters.

I think that will get winkled out from your next point...

In fact, there are several ones that are listed twice, the difference being "European", "Common", and so on. Does the list not count according to scientific name?

Good point. The Species List total count (on the web pages) doesn't gel with the Country List total count in the pivot tables, unless I use Scientific Names for the former and English for the latter.

As I've proposed in our personal emails, since you've instigated the thread, I think it's simplest if we defer to your original set if rules. I agree on the "European" "Common" nomenclature, it really only comes into play when we get to naming New World birds (Oz, US) i.e. where the Oz Robins aren't the same as European or US, or US Jays aren't European Jays, but there ARE introduced European species in these countries, so call them their "original" English names.

Notes to myself:
Also check what Clements call Larus dominicanus as there are too many "Black-backed Gull".

Here's the avibase summaryThere are splits and subspecies there. I suggest - your list, your call.

Also: House finch or Papayabird?
Are American Warblers placed in Parulidae in Clements?

Hmm - again, I think that's a problem with New World bird naming. The US Warblers (according to Nat.Geo) are covered by Muscicapidae and Emberizidae and the Oz ones are (Simpson and Day) Sylviidae and Acanthizidae.

Call it as you see it. Again - revert to your first post rules. Your list, your rules...How's that for being helpfull!

 

[bruto]

No, no, no. Quite happy to have this one out in public. The listing is yours. 1. you instigated it and 2. you've got the experience in taxonomy with your job. I'll definitely defer on those choices. As for cleaning up after you, HAH, I think I've caused enough problems with additions to your list! But that said, the pivot table
The The avibase search on Snow Goose (purportedly Clements 8, but you can also choose Clements 6) has all Snow Goose entries as anser, if that's any help.
I think that will get winkled out from your next point... Good point. The Species List total count (on the web pages) doesn't gel with the Country List total count in the pivot tables, unless I use Scientific Names for the former and English for the latter.

As I've proposed in our personal emails, since you've instigated the thread, I think it's simplest if we defer to your original set if rules. I agree on the "European" "Common" nomenclature, it really only comes into play when we get to naming New World birds (Oz, US) i.e. where the Oz Robins aren't the same as European or US, or US Jays aren't European Jays, but there ARE introduced European species in these countries, so call them their "original" English names.
Here's the avibase summaryThere are splits and subspecies there. I suggest - your list, your call.
Hmm - again, I think that's a problem with New World bird naming. The US Warblers (according to Nat.Geo) are covered by Muscicapidae and Emberizidae and the Oz ones are (Simpson and Day) Sylviidae and Acanthizidae.

Call it as you see it. Again - revert to your first post rules. Your list, your rules...How's that for being helpfull!

The snow geese we see around here are identified by my Petersen as Chen Caerulescens. The Champlain Valley is one of their favorite flyways, so we see them in great numbers, even though they don't hang around long.

 

[Elizabeth I]

Since she insists, I have also added Elizabeth I's finch. To me, at least, the comparative pictures she posted seem to make it easy to discern between the species, if you see them well enough. The National Geographic Society's Field Guide supports this, and also places where I believe San Antonio is within the range of the Purple, but outside the range of Cassin's.

I DO insist - besides that, all the interesting birds have run away again so I don't have anything to report besides grackle, grackle, grackle, starling, grackle, starling, starling...with the occasional mockingbird and white-wing dove - and they're so common around here they don't do much to break up the monotony either.

 

[Kestrel]

Kestrel, how the heck do you keep spotting cormorants and gulls in Colorado? Is there some inland sea I am unaware of?

I live about a mile from the shore of a great inland sea. but it seems to have dried up back in the Cretaceous period.

As for the Double-crested Cormorants, they find that Denver is a great place to raise children.

 

[Michelle Lyon]

Bakersfield, CA, at my home feeders, March 2008:

Category A/B;

House finch (Carpodacus mexicanus)
House sparrow (Passer domesticus)
Mourning dove (Zenaida macroura)
Northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)
Blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata)
Hummingbirds (can't tell yet what type, the don't sit still long. LOL)

Category C;
Rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula krameri)

Other birds observed in various parts of Bakersfield, CA during March, 2008;
Canadian geese, Mallard ducks, rock pigeons, a blackbird-type of bird but with a really pretty song (I will post again when I figure out what kind of bird it is - the female is brown rather than black), Another blackbird-type but with bright yellow eyes, and a much larger black bird that may be a raven.

The waterbirds are seen at parks, the Cal State campus, or various parts of Kern River, and I've seen the others in parking lots. The waterbirds flock together, and all the black perching birds, along with the doves and sometimes pidgeons, flock together. At my home feeders, the doves and small birds flock together - the finches at the feeder and the doves picking seeds from the ground - while the mockingbirds fly solo and are real bullies if there's a jay around. Mockingbirds are no match for the parrots, however. LOL

Nobody's nesting yet.

 

[Hokulele]

Also: House finch or Papayabird?

Probably House finch. Papayabird is a local name for them.


(I didn't know that the rest of the world called them House finches. )

EHocking, I am in Honolulu this week (again without a digital camera), but I really do hope to get a chance to get some more submissions for the Gallery. I do have your e-mail, I just need to get outside.

 

[Kotatsu]

No, no, no. Quite happy to have this one out in public. The listing is yours. 1. you instigated it and 2. you've got the experience in taxonomy with your job. I'll definitely defer on those choices. As for cleaning up after you, HAH, I think I've caused enough problems with additions to your list! But that said, the pivot table

Well, I actually fixed all those things as I wrote them, more or less. Apart from the Papayabird. I got impatient with my PCRs and needed something to do...^^

purportedly Clements 8, but you can also choose Clements 6

It doesn't seem to say anywhere on my paper cop which version it is I have, and have been following so far. It's a bit old though (but no dates inside!!), So I'm guessing this is Clements 6.

Otherwise, Snow geese were in Anser, and the dominicanus was renamed "Kelp Gull" already before I posted my last post^^.

 

[EHocking]

The snow geese we see around here are identified by my Petersen as Chen Caerulescens.

As did Clement's 6. Clement's 8 uses Anser c (and was Anas c). All the same beastie by the looks of things - leave that one for Kotatsu to manage, I think.

The Champlain Valley is one of their favorite flyways, so we see them in great numbers, even though they don't hang around long.

I neglected to tget out to east Anglia this winter, so missed the geese and swans. Amazing sight the first time I saw them - even my non-birding wife was impressed with the numbers in the flocks.

 

[Kotatsu]

Red kite Milvus milvus spotted over Gothenburg today! There are usually a handful or so spotted every spring when they come back from their winter quarters, but I usually miss them every year. This one was circling above central Gothenburg, but it was hard to tell exactly where from the tram.

 

[Kotatsu]

I DO insist - besides that, all the interesting birds have run away again so I don't have anything to report besides grackle, grackle, grackle, starling, grackle, starling, starling...with the occasional mockingbird and white-wing dove - and they're so common around here they don't do much to break up the monotony either.

Well, now it's on the list^^.

House finch (Carpodacus mexicanus)
House sparrow (Passer domesticus)
Mourning dove (Zenaida macroura)
Northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)
Blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata)
Hummingbirds (can't tell yet what type, the don't sit still long. LOL)
Category C;
Rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula krameri)

These are all added, except the hummingbird. It seems there are at least six species living in California, but only two that are there all year round: Anna's Hummingbird and Costa's Hummingbird. These pictures are, of course, of males, which seem to be quite easy to tell apart (red or purple^^?), but the females seem much harder. In the National Geographic Guide, it seems like the base colour of Anna's is grey, rather than white, as is the case with Costa's. I don't know if that's any help at all...

And I've never seen a hummingbird, so....^^

a blackbird-type of bird but with a really pretty song (I will post again when I figure out what kind of bird it is - the female is brown rather than black), Another blackbird-type but with bright yellow eyes

Both of these descriptions actually fit the European Blackbird Turdus merula.

Mockingbirds are no match for the parrots, however. LOL

My parents have a lot of birds at their feeder as well, but never anything as exotic as parrots. We do get bullfinches occasionally, though, and some green woodpeckers and the occasional coal tit or marsh tit. It's mainly just blue tits and great tits, though, and lots of pigeons on the ground...

 

[Jeff Corey]

North Fork, Long Island NY, today. Fish Crow, Corvus ossifragous. Nest building Osprey Pandion halaetus.

 

[Elizabeth I]

Friday, March 21, San Antonio, Texas:

Blue jay, Cyanocitta cristata

ETA: I have a question: are Hokulele's sightings in Hawai'i being lumped in with the 132 species shown on the map for the U.S.? If so, it's kind of a shame, given the distance - if they were shown in Hawai'i, it would give us a much better visual of the distribution of observers and sightings.

However, I am neither Kotatsu nor E. Hocking, both of whom are doing all the work here, so my remarks may be taken for what they're worth.

 

[Kotatsu]

I have added the ones above, as well as some from my trip to my parents' place. Unfortunately, the snow prevented us from going to Hornborgasjön to watch the cranes, but we did go to Dumme Mosse near Jönköping and saw some cranes Grus grus there, as well as two other new species for the list: Black grouse Tetrao tetrix and a bird that is something of a rarity --- Parrot Crossbill Loxia pytyopsittacus. We also saw a Jay Garrulus graldarius, and I've added some other birds that were already on the Swedish list, but not for that region (Smalandia). If anyone wants further details of these latter sightings --- which contain little of significance --- just ask.

As to Elizabeth's question:
So far, we list only by land. But we acknowledge that the US spans over vast distances, and that perhaps we should divide it somehow into faunal regions or other areas. I have asked for a recommendation for how to divide it from you natives before. Eric had the idea to use the census regions (I believe it was), but I would really like some input from more people, especially Americans. We do have a "Country_state" column in the list, but it is currently unused (I fill in all the details I get, though).

 

[Hokulele]

One more shorebird from Maui.

Wandering Tattler - Heteroscelus incanus

 

[Kestrel]

One more duck for the list from Colorado, USA:

Bucephala islandica Barrow's Goldeneye

 

[EHocking]

We've always been ones for making the most of a long weekend.
Helpfully BA didn't lose the bag with the bins and the fieldguide in, so here's a new country and subsequent species.

Cyprus.
21/3
Pallid Swift Apus pallidus
White Wagtail Motacilla alba alba
Cyprus Warbler Sylvia melanothorax
Shag Phalacrocorax aristotelis
Calandra Lark Melanocorypha calandra
Fan-tailed Warbler Cisticola juncidis
Greater Flamingo Phoenicopterus ruber
House Sparrow Passer domesticus
22/3
Kestrel Falco tinnunculus
Chukar Partridge Alectoris chukar
Black-winged Stilt Himantopus himantopus
Yellow-legged Gull Larus cachinnans
Wood Pigeon Columba palumbus
Collared Dove Streptopelia decaocto
Rock Sparrow Petronia petronia
Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica
Crag Martin Ptyonoprogne rupestris
House Martin Delichon urbica
Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea
Stonechat Saxicola torquata
Cyprus Pied Wheatear Oenanthe pleschanka
Finsch's Wheatear Oenanthe finschii
Isabelline Wheatear Oenanthe isabellina
Goldcrest Regulus Ignicapullus
Common Crossbill Loxia curvirostra
Coal Tit Parus ater
Wren Troglodytes troglodytes
23/3
Magpie Pica pica
Jackaw Corvus monedula
Carrion Crow Corvus corone
Raven Corvus corax
Water Pipit Anthus spinoletta
Tree Sparrow Passer montanus
Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs
Greenfinch Carduelis chloris
Goldfinch Carduelis carduelis
Starling Sturnus vulgaris
Blackbird Turdus merula
Short-toed Treecreeper Certia brachydactyla
24/3 (at the airport as a quick goodbye)
Hen Harrier Circus cyaneus

Oh, and one from last week. 18/3
London, Great Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo

 

[Serenity's Light]

Hi all! This is my first "real" post (i.e. the first one aside from my post in the Welcome thread).
I've enjoyed birdwatching since I was a little kid, so I was really happy to see that there's a birdwatching thread on here.

In the past week or so, I've seen the following:
red-tailed hawk
pigeons (The aforementioned hawk likes to hang around the area where a flock of pigeons congregates...it must be like a buffet! I've actually seen a pair of hawks there before, and I'm really hoping they have a chick this spring--seeing a young hawk flying around the neighborhood and watching it grow up would be so cool.)
American goldfinch
robin
house sparrow
European starling
mallard ducks (a pair)
tufted titmouse

 

[Kotatsu]

One more shorebird from Maui.

Wandering Tattler - Heteroscelus incanus

I hope to be able to catch both this one and the Gray-tailed one next year somewhere. Seems I will have to go to Alaska as well, then... My preliminary plans already includes visiting almost every Canadian province and Chesapeake Bay. And now Alaska as well? This will be expensive!

One more duck for the list from Colorado, USA:

Bucephala islandica Barrow's Goldeneye

And you have both the Goldeneyes AND the Buffalohead in your state... The worst thing with this thread is getting jealous when people if far-away places get to see birds that are rare or never seen in Sweden. ^^

We've always been ones for making the most of a long weekend.
Helpfully BA didn't lose the bag with the bins and the fieldguide in, so here's a new country and subsequent species.

A productive weekend, indeed! I don't have a European fieldguide here at work, but you managed to get everything that's endemic to Cyprus, no? As well as a Calandra lark; very impressive! I had Calandra lark last year in Sweden, and it's a beautiful bird. My supervisor has suggested that maybe some year I should go to Kazakhstan where they have those enormous Helgoland traps and catch Melanocorypha larks by the dozen every hour...

Hi all! This is my first "real" post (i.e. the first one aside from my post in the Welcome thread).
I've enjoyed birdwatching since I was a little kid, so I was really happy to see that there's a birdwatching thread on here.

Welcome, and thanks for your contribution! Two quick questions:
1. The pigeons, are they just common street pigeons?
2. Where do you live? If you don't want to make this public knowledge, just send me a PM or so. I need no more details than country, really, but appreciate at least state as well (I am assuming you live in the US from the birds you reported).

 

[EHocking]

A productive weekend, indeed! I don't have a European fieldguide here at work, but you managed to get everything that's endemic to Cyprus, no?

If you mean *both* of them, then yes. I wasn't aware of this until you mentioned it.

As well as a Calandra lark; very impressive! I had Calandra lark last year in Sweden, and it's a beautiful bird. My supervisor has suggested that maybe some year I should go to Kazakhstan where they have those enormous Helgoland traps and catch Melanocorypha larks by the dozen every hour...

Cyprus has beaches, marshes, salt lakes and the whole gamut of environments up to, and including, alpine. It was quite weird to be walking in shorts and sandals, through a dessicated pine (dare I say, Cyprus) forest where the fallen needles and cones had been bleached grey and then have to negotiate around snowdrifts. Where else can you brave sunstroke and frostbite in the same 2hr walk?!

What I did find disturbing was the scarcity of waterfowl, waders and seabirds. I might have seen a handfull of y.legged gulls. Perhaps the north and east coasts are more productive? I know hunting is a problem. We saw plenty of land put aside for Game Reserves.

 

[Kotatsu]

If you mean *both* of them, then yes. I wasn't aware of this until you mentioned it.

I may be wrong, but I believe I have read somewhere that Cyprus has its own endemic subspecies of several of the species you saw as well, such as the Crossbill, the Coal Tit, and the Goldcrest (by the way, this should be Firecrest, no? Or did you write the wrong scientific name?). I think it was in an article in the Swedish Ornithologists' Society on endimicity hotspots in Western palearctic; I'll see if I can find out more when I get home today.

Otherwise, you've seen a good percentage of Europe's few endemics on one trip! I can only think of a handful of other species that are truly endemic, but several of them may be endemic to Western palearctic rather than to Europe.

What I did find disturbing was the scarcity of waterfowl, waders and seabirds. I might have seen a handfull of y.legged gulls. Perhaps the north and east coasts are more productive? I know hunting is a problem. We saw plenty of land put aside for Game Reserves.

Could it be anything to do with the weather or so? I didn't think about this when I transferred your list to the spreadsheet, but it is odd.