Forum Birdwatching 2012

[jasonpatterson]

The yellow and the beak sure throw me off if that is a House Finch. However, I am truly unexperienced and shouldnt de-lurk to comment. Hopefully it will be back for a glamour shot.

...

Orange-crowned Warbler, Sauvie Island, OR. First time that I, on hearing a song, knew there was a bird I hadn't seen before and I needed to find it. Snapped this crummy shot.

I'll fess up to using I-Bird to ID the song.

Agreed that it's definitely not a house finch, though I wouldn't have been able to ID it myself without digging through a guide. Summer tanager looks right to me.

I can remember the first time I heard a mystery song. It was a really good feeling, because on top of realizing that there was a new bird nearby (or at least potentially a new bird), I found out that I had learned enough songs to know the everyday birds as well. Grats on the ID!

 

[NoahFence]

LOL....

BABY TURKEY!!

We saw the big turkey, and I'm all - hey, there's a bunch of sparrows there with her!

doh!

The non-zoomed pic:

 

[NoahFence]

Agreed that it's definitely not a house finch, though I wouldn't have been able to ID it myself without digging through a guide. Summer tanager looks right to me.

I can remember the first time I heard a mystery song. It was a really good feeling, because on top of realizing that there was a new bird nearby (or at least potentially a new bird), I found out that I had learned enough songs to know the everyday birds as well. Grats on the ID!

I put it on ebird.com and sent the photo to some folks at Cornell, who positively ID'd it as an immature Summer Tanager. Pretty rare around here but not unheard of like when there was a Crested Caracara down the street.

 

[Humanzee]

Two adult and two immature Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) at Conboy Lake NWR, WA today. Too far away to photograph unfortunately (so no cool Baby shot)

Also 6 Pygmy Nuthatch (Sitta pygmaea). A new bird for me. Two were tending a nest. Sorry for the poor quality shot.

 

[dasmiller]

I'm a little behind in going through old photo sets, so these aren't actually from 2012 . . . but I'm posting them in 2012.

My mother's back patio is very popular with the birds in the winter, probably because she regularly tosses bird seed onto the snow. The birds are pretty hungry, so if bundle up and sit still, I can get some pretty close shots before I get too cold.


Pensive Blue Jay

Last year I went to St. Louis on a business trip (actually, I think I went twice) and of course I took the camera. The robin was hopping around in a vacant field next to the hotel:



American Robin Portrait


While on that trip, I spent an overcast afternoon wandering around Forest Park in St. Louis, MO. IMO, this was the best of the pictures:


Mockingbird Portrait

 

[GeeMack]

Ruby Throated Hummingbird I shot today near Peoria, Illinois...

​

He likes to drink from the small feeder, and between drinks he takes a rest on the larger, dish shaped feeder. He doesn't even realize there's plenty of sugar water right there under his tiny feet!

 

[ParrotPirate]

I'm not what I would call a serious birder. I like birds, finches and cardinals are favorites. I like watching hawks and other raptors, too. I saw something yesterday that I've never seen before, and need some help with identification. I watched a smallish hawk-like bird "hover" by rapid wing flapping rather than "gliding on thermals. It was fairly low, too. It was late in the day, so visibility was very poor, couldn't get a good look at color/markings. I was in south-eastern Wisconsin at the time. (Waukesha, near the airport.) The best guess I can come up with is a broad-winged hawk, but that seem a bit large.

 

[NoahFence]

The hovering would suggest to me a smaller falcon type bird. Maybe an American Kestrel?

 

[ParrotPirate]

The more I think about it, the Kestrel seems like it might be right. I thought at first it was too big. Range seems wrong to be a harrier or Swainsons hawk. It was to my west, with setting sun behind, and I was on the lowest ground in the area, so I couldn't really make out markings or anything, and it didn't call, that I heard. It was right at my work-place, so I hope to see it again and nail down a solid identification.

 

[NoahFence]

The American Kestrel is what got me into birds in my mid-teens. I was walking around a park, and saw one hovering. Then it got the critter it was looking for, and went to a tree to eat. When it perched I saw the coloring and it was just amazing.



Sorta like that?

 

[ParrotPirate]

BINGO! That is exactly what it was doing. Now I hope I can see it in better light and maybe get some pictures. (In my previous post, I meant I thought the bird I saw was too big to be a kestrel, but I think you're right on.)

 

[Jeff Corey]

Does birdilstening count? I've heard these recently:

And there's an owl in back that I heard last night, again.

 

[ParrotPirate]

Took my kayak out this morning. Found a pelican rookery, a great blue heron rookery, saw several cormorants,ducks and gulls.

 

[NoahFence]

 

[dasmiller]

I'm not positive that it was a Heermann's. It was an unusually dark gull, but I couldn't get near it; the pictures I took were backlit so it's hard to judge the beak colors. Going through Sibley's, the Heermann's gull looked like the most likely match, and I am in their range, so I can make a decent case for it, but I can't be certain like I am for most of the others.

Well, this time I can confirm it. I was at Venice Beach today, and there were a lot of Heermann's gulls around. This time the lighting was just fine, as long as you were looking down:

On the pier, there was a pelican tame enough that people were posing with him. Well, near him, anyway; I think everyone stayed at least 1 meter from him, largely because his bill is about that long.


Unshy pelican (on Flickr)

 

[Humanzee]

Is that a Rose-breasted Grossbeak, NoahFence?

Nice photos dasmiller.

Saw Chestnut-sided Warbler (Dendroica pensylcanica) near Sisters, Oregon. A rare bird for us north-westerners and was pretty exciting.

(crappy panicky photo not posted)

 

[quarky]

I haven't seen a Baltimore Oriole in 20 years. They seem to have vanished from this area, as have scarlet tanagers. I'm in the Northern foothills of the Cumberland Plateau.
Any of you folks seeing them?

 

[bruto]

I haven't seen a Baltimore Oriole in 20 years. They seem to have vanished from this area, as have scarlet tanagers. I'm in the Northern foothills of the Cumberland Plateau.
Any of you folks seeing them?

We still get them with some frequency here in Western Vermont. Not as abundant as many birds, but we see a few every year without looking too hard.

Alas, not much else in the interesting bird realm this year. We did see a nice eagle in flight, but that's about the best of it, not helped by some visual compromise on my part. I can usually see if I notice a bird, but can't scan as I used to.

 

[GeeMack]

I haven't seen a Baltimore Oriole in 20 years. They seem to have vanished from this area, as have scarlet tanagers. I'm in the Northern foothills of the Cumberland Plateau.
Any of you folks seeing them?

We usually see at a couple Baltimore Orioles each year here in central Illinois. I never have seen many of them, but they don't seem any less common recently than they have most of my 3 or 4 decades of birdwatching.

 

[jasonpatterson]

I haven't seen a Baltimore Oriole in 20 years. They seem to have vanished from this area, as have scarlet tanagers. I'm in the Northern foothills of the Cumberland Plateau.
Any of you folks seeing them?

I see them occasionally in NE Ohio. Not often, but once or twice a year. I never saw them in southern Indiana, but that was probably more a function of my lack of birdwatching than their absence.