Ed Forum birdwatching 2008

[mummymonkey]

Larus cachinnans is Yellow-legged gull?

 

[Kotatsu]

Larus cachinnans is Yellow-legged gull?

I was perhaps doubly mistaken, but I always find this tricky:
There are three yellow-legged "Herring gulls" in Europe:
- Larus armenicus - Armenian Gull according to Clements
- Larus cachinnans - Yellow-legged Gull according to Clements
- Larus [cachinnans?] michahellis - Also Yellow-legged Gull in Clements, treated as a subspecies of cachinnans

However, at least here in Sweden, the two latter have been split, and now form two different species. We call cachinnans "Caspian Gull[/i] and michahellis Mediterranean gull.

So if we follow Clements, you would be entirely correct. However, I think this is one of those cases where newer studies should override Clements. I don't think we've had many cases before, but perhaps the Rosellas?

Thus, as the picture is in Greece, this is most likely to be Larus michahellis, but I don't know what the English name for that is. Yellow-legged or Mediterranean?

(I can back this overriding of Clements up with an article when I get to work, if anyone is interested).

 

[chillzero]

Nice pics. It's inspiring. People I've asked usually mention the Nikon or a Canon 40D. I've also heard a lens from 28mm is a good choice.

I think the proper question might be, what is a good focal length for the lens?

Mine's a Canon 5D, and I use usually a 200 - 400mm telephoto lens. Expensive and heavy, but worth it if it's more than a casual hobby. The rest of the time I use a 24 - 55mm zoom lens. You need one that you can use from a distance, that focusses really quickly, will take a ream of shots together and that's as quiet as possible, if you're out taking wildlife shots.

 

[sphenisc]

Larus cachinnans is Yellow-legged gull?

I think someone needs to check Clements to see how it deals with the herring gull complex.

I'd personally call that bird a Yellow-legged gull Larus michahellis largely on the basis of the P10 pattern and the brightness of the legs, and to some extent the location.

[Comparison of P10s and other features here ]

The kestrel is more difficult. My gut reaction on jizz was "Lesser Kestrel", but on teasing it apart I'm not entirely sure.

Features in favour:
Proportionately short tail and wings (though wing position doesn't help).
Rounded wing tips and again position doesn't help, but even so they could almost be hawk wings.
Head appears relatively large and brighter grey-blue than Common, (could be effect of blurring plus Mediterranean lighting).
Plain back (could be effect of blurring)

Features against:
Lack of grey band from carpals to tertials - first summer males don't show this feature anyway so not a problem.
Lack of extension of central tail feathers - this is difficult to check in the photograph and, while a good feature for picking up on lessers, I don't think the lack of them in a single picture is a significant argument against it being lesser.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...=ACfU3U1hp6Z1WhonOmTsny6dRUbQr-MEjA#PPA844,M1

[also see p836]

Any chance of an enlargment/ other views? Did you hear a call? Was there more than one?

 

[Kotatsu]

I think someone needs to check Clements to see how it deals with the herring gull complex.

Clements lumps both species together under Larus cachinnans. However, as I said above, I think this is a case where disregarding Clements might be warranted, as cachinnans and michahellis can, apparently, be told apart easily in the field. I'm not very good at it myself, but on Öland --- where both species can be found in small quantities during the autumn! --- I met several people who could, and they assured me that once you knew what to look for, it was easy and quite consistent. My tripod binocular wasn't really good enough to spot all these differences, though, but I did see them in other people's binoculars. I do not pretend to remember these differences, though, and assumed it was the "Mediterranean Gull" only due to location.

And I agree that this is the species that is called "Mediterranean Gull" in Swedish, but was mistaken both to the English name and the scientific name. When both species were still referred to as one, it was called "Yellow-legged Gull" in Swedish as well, but we switched names when they split.

Are there any objections to stepping aside from Clements in this case?

The kestrel is more difficult. My gut reaction on jizz was "Lesser Kestrel", but on teasing it apart I'm not entirely sure.

I have no experience of the lesser, but agree that the tail seems short, and that the head doesn't really shout "kestrel" at me. However, an enlargement would be necessary.

 

[mummymonkey]

As to the gull I would have placed it as L. cachinnans michahellis (Yellow-legged gull) but I don't have the latest info on this fluid group of birds. Mediterranean gull is L. melanocephalus.
The kestrel is very hard and I wouldn't like to make a guess on it as I have no experience of F. naumanni in the field.

 

[Kotatsu]

Mediterranean gull is L. melanocephalus.

We call that one "Black-headed Gull", and the species you call "Black-headed Gull", Larus ridibundus, we call "Laughing Gull", which I believe is your name for Larus atricilla; this latter bird we call "Soot-winged Gull". It is usually the case that the Swedish name for birds which are not generally found in Sweden, and thus don't have old established popular names, are just translations from English or, in some cases, German. This apparently breaks down for the gulls, though.

 

[mummymonkey]

Which is why we thank your countryman of course.

 

[Kotatsu]

Which is why we thank your countryman of course.

In my opinion, the bi/trinominal system is the best invention ever. But then I am a systematist, so I would say that^^.

 

[Kotatsu]

I do, however, have one observation. We have a great many crows around here, and as expected, most of them make the usually "Caw Caw" sound that instantly identifies them as crows. But recently I've been hearing some making a much higher, less hoarse call. I"m not sure they're all doing it, but at least a group of them, especially when flying around chasing things, are sounding different enough that I thought at first I was hearing a heron or something else. When I saw crows, I was quite surprised. Do you suppose we have a local crow subculture with its own dialect?

Seem to have overlooked this one; sorry.

I've looked in the Sibley Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America, and I can only give two suggestions:

1. It was Fish crows you heard. Their voice is described as "Common call a simple, short, nasal cah or cah-ah; less often a hoarser cahrrr similar to juvenile America [crow]".
2. It was juvenile American Crows you heard. Their voice is described as: "higher and hoarser [than adults]; often a drawn-out cahrrr".

Does this fit at all? I understand that some birds have extensive dialectal differences, but I've never heard that crows would have them. I may be wrong, though. Both sounds, I believe, can be heard on www.mangoverde.com (I think the second one is the juvenile American Crow).

 

[Mercutio]

Great Crested Grebe Podiceps cristatus

In the second post, your sightings are (in order):
Mediterranean Gull Larus cachinnans (new to the list, I think)
Magpie Pica pica
Magpie again
Jackdaw Corvus monedula
A kestral Falco tinnunculus, but I'd really like to see higher resolution on this one. In Greece, you also have the Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni, which would have blue fields on the wings, lack black spots in the orange shoulders and inner wings, and lack a black moustache. I can't really tell on the picture.

I went back to the raw file to get the best closeup I could, but this was a hand-held telephoto tracking a bird in flight underneath me, so this is the best I can do:

(very slightly larger original size here, if it helps.)

Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs

Your juvenile is a Moorhen Gallinula chloropus

Are all these taken at the same place you mentioned before?

Actually, only the Grebes. Lemme see if I can be precise...
Moorhen was at Dion, Greece, just below Mount Olympus, June 16.
Chaffinch was at Delphi, Greece, June 9th
Kestral was at the Corinth Canal, June 5th
Jackdaws at Litohoro, Greece, June 16
Magpies were freakin' everywhere. The top photo was in Thessaloniki on the 13th, the two on a wire were North of Thessaloniki, while we sat in a bus waiting for one pinhead's luggage to catch up with us, on the 18th.
The gull was over the Aegean, between Ouranopolis and Mr. Athos, June 15th.

I am a bit curious to find out if anyone is using a Mac, and could recommend a program I could use to lessen the size of the pictures... I am a bit of a newbie to Mac, and have no clue.

Lessen the size? As in cropping? Or are you talking about the file size, and compression? iPhoto works just fine for cropping (and can straighten, and a few other tweaks), and export in different (small, medium, large, original) sizes for email or website use. My sis-in-law (pro photog) does tell me that, even though she does most of her casual work with iPhoto, that I will eventually want to get Photoshop. I have not used it, though, so cannot say.

 

[Kotatsu]

I have now added the records of sphenisc, Red Ibis, Big Les, Mercutio, Kestrel, AK-Dave, and Elizabeth I made sine I posted my German list, which should mean that between Eric and me, everything is listed.

A few questions have arisen:
I have set Kestrel's observations to "2008-07-10", which is arbitrary. Is this acceptable, or do you want some other date (even if you don't know exactly when they were observed)?

The same question goes for AK-Dave, whose observations have been placed on 2008-07-27 (as close to today as I can get in "last week", as usual).

Lastly, Mercutio: were all of your observations at the same general locality, during the same day? If not, and you have no exact days, it is acceptable to you to put all of them on 2008-06-18?

EDIT: It seems the last was already resolved by the time this was posted; I had forgotten about asking before.

As to my Mac question, I meant both. I can't seem to understand how to crop the picture, because it never seems to stick. I haven't looked at it much, though, so I'll do that today.

 

[Kestrel]

I am a bit curious to find out if anyone is using a Mac, and could recommend a program I could use to lessen the size of the pictures... I am a bit of a newbie to Mac, and have no clue.

I have been using the "Export for Web" feature of Photoshop Elements.

If all you have is iPhoto, try using the "Send Email" button and select the small or medium size. After iPhoto launches mail, drag the photo out of the Mail message onto the desktop.

 

[Kotatsu]

I'd say that was a Lesser Kestrel, as the shoulders and back seem to be entirely spotless. I'll wait and see what others say before writing anything into the list, though.

 

[Mercutio]

If it helps, a couple more pics of the gull:

And I found one other favorite--not a good pic, but easily enough to tell:

And for fun...:

I also saw several barns full of Gallus gallus (or G. domesticus, if you prefer)

 

[Kestrel]

I have set Kestrel's observations to "2008-07-10", which is arbitrary. Is this acceptable, or do you want some other date (even if you don't know exactly when they were observed)?

The Red-naped Sapsucker photo was taken on 2008-07-13. The White-tailed Ptarmigan was on 2008-06-23. I bit further back than I had remembered.

As to my Mac question, I meant both. I can't seem to understand how to crop the picture, because it never seems to stick. I haven't looked at it much, though, so I'll do that today.

In the iPhoto editor, select the crop tool, move the boundaries, then click the "Apply" button. I also check the "Constrain" box before moving the boundaries to keep the aspect ratio the same as the original. Click the "Done" button to save your edits.

 

[sphenisc]

And for fun...:
[qimg]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3194/2716152701_5f9f69f16c.jpg[/qimg]

It looks like a Streptopelia dove but very dark for Collared Dove, neck marking and general appearance is wrong for Turtle, and I can't think of any others in the area. Tell me I'm missing something obvious...

 

[Kotatsu]

In the iPhoto editor, select the crop tool, move the boundaries, then click the "Apply" button. I also check the "Constrain" box before moving the boundaries to keep the aspect ratio the same as the original. Click the "Done" button to save your edits.

Thank you! Now I understand how to do it. I had been doing everything sort of backwards, but now it works. I will organise my pictures as well as soon as possible.

It looks like a Streptopelia dove but very dark for Collared Dove, neck marking and general appearance is wrong for Turtle, and I can't think of any others in the area. Tell me I'm missing something obvious...

Could it be very sooty?

 

[Mercutio]

It looks like a Streptopelia dove but very dark for Collared Dove, neck marking and general appearance is wrong for Turtle, and I can't think of any others in the area. Tell me I'm missing something obvious...

Here's the same bird, cropped a bit and with the picture lightened just a tad:

I should mention that this photo is Athens, June 1st.
Oh, and the one above it is in the village of Parthenon, near Ouranopoulis, June 14th.

 

[Mercutio]

... lastly (*cheers*), what appear to be the last birds of any sort* in my Greece photos:

June 4, Athens:

And Thessaloniki (American Farm School), June 13:

*there may be more hiding in the Lake Kerkini pics, but I have not seen them yet.