Ed Forum birdwatching 2008

San Antonio, Texas, March 1 and 2:

Red-bellied woodpecker, Melanerpes carolinus

Please note that according to The Cornell Lab of Ornithology webpage, this bird is supposed to come no farther west than east Texas, but here it is in south central Texas.

And it's not a red-headed woodpecker, either, because it has just that red spot on the back of its head.

Or, upon further research, it could be (and more likely is) the golden-fronted woodpecker, Melanerpes aurifrons.

Darn it. Thought I had a sighting out of range.
 
Well, I'm afraid I'd missed Kestrel and Fiona's last posts before I put the pages together, also, I created a bit of work for Kotatsu by adding sightings by country (my apologies, Kotatsu) and am waiting on his adjudication on the list.

In the meantime, the provisional pages can be found here : JREF Forum Birdwatching

Contents are the Forum Species List (ordered by family) and map as well as the (provisional) Country List.

Nothing flash yet - use the back button to get back to the first page and "index".
 
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I have to rush to work now, and will deal with the rest while there, but I can add Ringed plover Charadrius hiaticula to the list now, as one individual was seen yesterday near where I live. There have been as many as six there during the week, but I only saw one, and a bunch of lapwings.
 
Akhenaten said:
I'll wait 'til someone in authority (ie. anyone) gives the OK to submit suggested corrections.
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Submit away^^. I have a visitor this week, and will be going to the Museum of Natural History in Stockholm to look at some lice on Wednesday to Saturday, so I may not be very responsive at first (I'm also trying to figure out EHocking's spreadsheet), but I will do everything as soon as possible.

Kestrel said:
Spotted a couple new ducks today (Feb 29) in Colorado, USA:

Anas carolinensis Green-winged Teal
Anas americana American Wigeon
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Soon, we'll have the entire genus of Anas. Well, supposing some is planning to go to Campbell Island, the Andamans, Eastern Madagascar, and Kerguelen for vacation...^^

Camillus said:
Seen today in a cemetary in West London:
  1. Ring-necked parrakeet, Psittacula krameri
  2. Blue tit, Cyanistes caeruleus
  3. Long-tailed tit, Aegithalos caudatus
  4. Green woodpecker, Picus viridis
  5. Robin, Erithacus rubecula

Also saw a fair number of wood pigeons, crows and magpies. I don't think any of the sightings are new, although there might be a couple that are firsts for the UK.
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I think the woodpecker is new for the UK.

Fiona said:
barnacle geese
redshanks
greenshanks
rooks
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Those retained above have been added to the list. Others may be new for the UK, but I'll work on that later. Thank you!

Elizabeth I said:
Or, upon further research, it could be (and more likely is) the golden-fronted woodpecker, Melanerpes aurifrons.
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According to the map in the National Geograpc Society's "Field Guide to the Birds of North America", you could certainly have both in the general area of San Antonio, though the map I have is both old and not extremely detailed. I will put this down as aurifrons, though, as that seems to be most likely, unless someone protests.

EHocking said:
Well, I'm afraid I'd missed Kestrel and Fiona's last posts before I put the pages together, also, I created a bit of work for Kotatsu by adding sightings by country (my apologies, Kotatsu) and am waiting on his adjudication on the list.
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No need to apologise, I just may get slower the next week or so as I have a very pretty visitor from Germany^^. However, one small thing: could the country total on the "sightings by country" page be placed at the top instead?

I also note that Fiona stole the Rook from me just a few days before I saw my first one. Damn you British and your early springs^^.
 
bruto said:
Visiting in Texas for awhile, and not keeping up on the identifications, but we've seen some egrets, a couple of mockingbirds, a strange hawk somewhat similar to a rough legged hawk but not quite, some unfamiliar texan crows with very long tails, and - not really an identification thing, but a good omen for us northerners, great big skeins of snow geese flying very high overhead, heading back north. Go, geese, go, and bring spring with you!
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Following the coming of EHocking's excellent system, I have added Snow goose and Northern Mockingbird to the list as well, but as there seems to be a million different species of egrets in Texas, these will have to be left out... I am also unsure about the grackles, and have left them out, as there seems to be three different species in Texas.

Kestrel said:
According to Wikipedia, most subspecies of Ardea herodias vary only slightly in size an plumage tone. Based on location alone, I probably saw Ardea herodias herodias, but don't feel certain enough to add it to the list.
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Following this, I have not added a subspecies to the list, but have added the sighting. Perhaps it could even be prudent to divide the US into parts in the country listing, since it's so large? I don't know what parts would be natural to use, though, so I'll ask the Americans participating in this to suggest something.

bruto said:
In the meantime, I've also seen some pelicans, and what I presume are snowy egrets, and one very large white bird which I presume is a great egret. Also a smallish heron which I'm guessing was a little blue, though I didn't get a long enough look to be sure. Back to the land of snow and ice tomorrow, so I don't know if I'll get any more of those exotic Texan birds.
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White or brown pelicans? And do you feel certain enough on the great egret to have it added? According to the map I have, this seems the most likely species as well.

I will go through the list and all the reported sightings as soon as possible and try to keep the list up to date, but this week, as I have bragged about over and over now, I have a cute German visitor, and I may not have the time nor the inclination to sit in front of the computer too much...^^
 
With today's great updates, we're at 233 species.

EDIT:
And the first thing on my to-do-list is to sort out the families, because there's something funny going on with EHocking's Threshiornithidae....
 
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Kotatsu said:
With today's great updates, we're at 233 species.

EDIT:
And the first thing on my to-do-list is to sort out the families, because there's something funny going on with EHocking's Threshiornithidae....
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Went to the chemist for it, but they don't have anything that can help.

Shoot me your latest additions/editing and I'll send you back the sheet with the Families that I've used. (that'll teach me for HTMLing late at night).
 
EHocking said:
Went to the chemist for it, but they don't have anything that can help.

Shoot me your latest additions/editing and I'll send you back the sheet with the Families that I've used. (that'll teach me for HTMLing late at night).
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Ever try HTMLing after a few drinkies? It's a trip :)

My suggested editions are now very few, which I think means that I was, in fact, jumping in to soon when I posted earlier. Sorry.

Missing from the Psittacidae in the Family List is:

Crimson Rosella Platycercus elegans


Missing from the Country list for Australia are:

Eastern Rosella Platycercus eximius
Crimson Rosella Platycercus elegans


This probably happened because I wasn't reporting my IRL location in my early posts. Sorry again, and great job.
 
New addition for the Vermont area: Eastern bluebird (sialia sialis). We see the advance scouts around now or a little earlier, looking for nesting spots before they actually migrate. At least I hope that's what we're seeing. If they're migrating already, they're gonna freeze their little tails off!
 
Kotatsu said:
White or brown pelicans? And do you feel certain enough on the great egret to have it added? According to the map I have, this seems the most likely species as well.
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The pelicans were brown for sure (pelicanus occidentalis), and I can't imagine what other bird the great Egret would have been. Not big enough for a whooping crane (yeah, don't I wish!), and not the right head for a white blue heron, nor the right beak for an ibis. As long as my life doesn't actually depend on it, I'd say it was a great egret. As for the grackles, I cannot be sure without seeing them side by side. They had pretty big tails, and were inland in the cities, so I'm guessing great-tailed, but they could have been common grackles.
 
Nice lists, by the way. I think you missed the chipping sparrows (spizella passerina). I reported them pretty early, probably without proper names, and they probably got lost in the shuffle. They're pretty common around here. We should also have a rough-legged hawk (buteo lagopus) in the US column as well as the Canadian (we call them hawks south of the border, reserving "buzzard" for vultures). I saw mine again yesterday in his customary tree.
 
bruto said:
Nice lists, by the way. I think you missed the chipping sparrows (spizella passerina). I reported them pretty early, probably without proper names, and they probably got lost in the shuffle. They're pretty common around here. We should also have a rough-legged hawk (buteo lagopus) in the US column as well as the Canadian (we call them hawks south of the border, reserving "buzzard" for vultures). I saw mine again yesterday in his customary tree.
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I do recall seeing it (adding it?) to the spreadsheet at one time or another. The spreadsheet has travelled to and fro between myself and Kotatsu so may well have got lost in the rewrites and cross-traffic.

Now that I've added the Family/Order additions to the spreadsheet and sorted out the tables and basic web pages, I'll be deferring to Kotatsu as "Keeper of the List" and his adjudications. I don't want to complicate the data gathering more than I've already done!

I'll also defer to Kotatsu on how frequently he wants the lists to be published to the web. I think fortnightly is probably not too infrequent.
 
Well, there are many birds on EHocking's list which do not occur on my list. Some of them are disqualified ones, some are multiple sightings (which I never listed, but have started doing), and some seem to be ones I have just missed. I have started revising the list by taking EHocking's list and check that against the thread, but am still in the second week of January.

Also, I have added families according to Clements to my list. His division is slightly different from the one you've used, but not in very many places (1). I'll continue working on this tonight, and will hopefully be finished with it by tomorrow, when I go away. There may thus be a glitch over the rest of the week where the list doesn't get updated. Just keep reporting sightings, though, and never mind if it has been reported before from your country or so. As I understand it, the spreadsheet functions EHocking has prepared will recognise this and just count it as one sighting anyway. Besides, it might be nice, now that the webpage is up and has a page for months, to have the same birds reported by the same person different months.

Does the spreadsheet calculate these month-records automatically?

ETA:
In the interest of completeness, I will be adding some older observations of mine to the list. These will probably not be published here as well, as they do not constitute new records for the list, unless they are new ones for Sweden, or new ones for a specific month.

ETA2:
The pills you took against the problem with Threskiornithidae seems to have worked, but as an unexpected side effect, they bloated Pandionidae, which now also contains the entire orders of Galliformes and Gaviiformes. But as I mentioned above, I am adding families and orders to all records according to the classification of Clements', so this is no big deal.

---
(1) An example: He places Grallina in a family of its own, Grallinidae, while you have it placed in Acanthisittidae.
 
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EHocking said:
Now that I've added the Family/Order additions to the spreadsheet and sorted out the tables and basic web pages, I'll be deferring to Kotatsu as "Keeper of the List" and his adjudications. I don't want to complicate the data gathering more than I've already done!
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It might have become more complicated, but it certainly has become much better!

EHocking said:
I'll also defer to Kotatsu on how frequently he wants the lists to be published to the web. I think fortnightly is probably not too infrequent.
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I published my excerpts roughly once a week. I believe that at least further on, it would be better to have an update based on numbers of added species or numbers of added sightings rather than on a fixed period of time, as long as that works. Otherwise, once the migratory birds return, once every two weeks may be too seldom; even once every week may be too seldom, depending on what the list is actually used for.
 
Kotatsu said:
It might have become more complicated, but it certainly has become much better!
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Glad someone with expertise is overseeing the QC, though.
Hopefully the Family/Order problems were only an oversight by me. The website I used ( http://www.bsc-eoc.org/avibase/ ) supposedly uses Clements 6th Edition, so should have gelled with your reference?
I published my excerpts roughly once a week. I believe that at least further on, it would be better to have an update based on numbers of added species or numbers of added sightings rather than on a fixed period of time, as long as that works. Otherwise, once the migratory birds return, once every two weeks may be too seldom; even once every week may be too seldom, depending on what the list is actually used for.
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I think we're probably gathering enough basic data for the initial purpose of the thread/list.

I'm open to suggestions on how to summarise the data and what interests people. For instance, here's a cumulative sighting by country (only to 25th Feb, I'm working from a different PC).
 
I had no idea this thread existed. It's good to see other bird nerds on jref. I work at a rather large facility in C. Florida with several retention ponds around the parking lots. I keep a bird list on my door. I keep another at home, which is six miles from work.

Today, I saw a Northern Flicker.

Florida is a birder's paradise, so I'll try to stick with the less common species. I'm also no ornithologist so forgive my laymen lingo.

Water:
Roseate Spoonbill
Herons- Great Blue, Night, Louisiana, Green, and tri-colored
Anhinga
Sandhill Crane
Ibis
Common Moorhen
Wood Duck
Egret - Snowy and Cattle
Wood Stork

Songbirds:
Carolina Chickadee
Carolina Wren
Northern Cardinals
Mockingbird
Tufted Titmouse
Great Crested Flycatcher
Cedar Waxwing
Palm Warbler

Others:
Red Shouldered Hawk, Night and Sharpshinned
Turkey Vulture
Woodpeckers, Red Bellied, pilleated, yellowbellied sapsucker, Northern Flicker

We have some great migratory zones where painted buntings and other beauties hang out, but I haven't spotted that yet. I'll keep checking back on this thread.
 
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