• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Cassin's Kingbird (1 Viewer)

F

Fenris

Member
Hi,

This is my first attemp at a posting with a photo attached. I hope this works. I think this is a Cassin's Kingbird but I'm not sure. My husband and I saw it today at Lake Murray near San Diego CA. Any help in confirming the id (or letting us know that we are all wet) would be appreciated.

Sue Williams aka Fenris B :)
 

Attachments

  • Small Cassin's Kingbird.jpg
    Small Cassin's Kingbird.jpg
    69.4 KB · Views: 929
Last edited:
I first thought oriole when I saw it but the bill seems wrong. So I'm thinking Western Tanager would fit better (though the bill still doesn't quite match) since the tail on this bird seems too short for oriole and the bill doesn't seem pointy enough (but I'd expect a tanager to have a thicker bill?). Also the belly is a uniform color which orioles wouldn't really have without showing some facial markings. It definitely doesn't look like any kingbird/flycatcher to me. It looks like it should be an easy i.d. but I guess my brain is too tired to make much more out of it.
 
Cassin's kingbird would have a gray hood and white malars, wouldn't it?

I've come to the conclusion that it's also a Tanager, but there's only one in the Sibley Western guide that is found in California. The Western Tanager is my best bet.
 
gthang said:
Cassin's kingbird would have a gray hood and white malars, wouldn't it?

I've come to the conclusion that it's also a Tanager, but there's only one in the Sibley Western guide that is found in California. The Western Tanager is my best bet.
Click to expand...


I agree with Warbler and Gthang, I think it is a female Western Tanager.
One can see the two wing bars, the yellow belly and the yellow-olive, darker, back. Bill seems alright to me both in shape and color.

Dalcio
 
Fenris, your picture is pretty good, it should work for an ID. Waiting for more suggestions. I can only ID male tanagers so far. I would hesitate to call it anything, but don't exclude all flycatchers yet.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for suggestions

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for the suggestions for ID'ing my mystery bird. I'll wait to see if anyone else weighs in but female Western Tanager seems to be leading. I appreciate your help to a novice birder.

Fenris :clap:
 
Most of use are absolutely positive that your bird is a Western Tanager, but if you're still not sure that it's a WT, don't hesitate to wait for people saying it's otherwise.

Hey, I saw 3 birds on April 24th that were IDd in this forum to be Ring-necked Ducks, Horned Grebe/Wood Duck, and Yellow-Rumped Warbler. The yellow-rumped bird was pretty easy, considering that it had a yellow patch on its hind end. The Ring-Necked Duck and Grebe/Wood Duck pictures were too far away to be of any use. In fact, some people thought one of my ducks was nearly 100% Horned Grebe, but after looking at it again and more thoroughly, he still wasn't sure. Somebody else chimed in and said that it looks most like a Wood Duck.

Basically what this forum is is a way to really narrow your search down. I look at my bird guides and go to the bird that is mentioned and I study it carefully, If someone says that the bill on my bird is typical of a wood-warbler, that can really narrow my search to ID my bird.

Good luck!
 
I'm with Jane on this one...

Have a look at that bill!!! Very unlike ANY Tanager found in the US. If anybody can find a photo with a US Tanager having a bill like that one (note how slim bill is on the photo), I'd love to see it! Tail shape also seems wrong for a tanager, but not unlike an oriole. Tail-lenght has much to do with age of the bird, and the bird on the photo could very well be a young bird. "Oriole sp." isn't exactly a perfect match, but I just can't get myself to calling it a Tanager. I have an even harder time with calling it a tanager knowing it would then be a Piranga, a fairly distinct genus.

At very most I would call it a "perhaps Western Tanager"

Photo of male & female Western Tanager:
http://www.birdphotography.com/species/weta.html
 
Last edited:
I still see mostly flycatcher (a loose term) in the bill, so the original ID in th OP may not be that far off. Say's Phoebe?

As for the rest of the rest of the bird, immature Bullocks Oriole would fit.
 
Last edited:
Rasmus, you mean I should have stuck with my original thoughts about it being an oriole? I'm not convinced. You gave some convincing evidence for it not being a tanager, but, in my opinion anyway, there's not much to replace it with. Orioles have a very pointy bill that's mostly black, as you can see this bird doesn't have either of those features. The only orioles that would be in that area are Hooded and Bullock's (if you don't take into account that it could be a foreign bird). Of these two, Hooded seem more likely (to me) from the coloration but they have a long black tail. Like I said in my first post, the bill doesn't seem to fit tanager or oriole and the color of it completly throws me off. The Sibley shows the oriole to have the lower mandible more visble (higher or taking up most of the bill, if you know what I mean) while the opposite is true of the tanager (the upper mandible is larger). The bill seems almost right for a Western Tanager, shorter and the upper mandible slightly downcurved. The only problem being that it's not quit thick enough. I searched for images of juvenile (imm.) tanagers and orioles but couldn't find much.

Fenris, do you have any more photos of the bird?
 
More Photos?

Hi,

I'll look at the files we downloaded from the camera and see if there are any that might help. This seemed to be the best photo at the time. I might not get to it until tomorrow.

Thanks for all the interest in helping me ID this bird.

Fenris
 
I believe it might be an adult female Scarlet Tanager. Almost certainly one of the tanagers. Western might be the one to be expected in the San Diego area, but the western, however, has an orangish bill, and distinct, light wing bars. Your bird's bill is not "orangish" and the wing bars are rather indistinct. Sibley's guide does show some isolated sightings of Hepatic (which your bird is not) and Scarlet in your area. So it could possibly be that a Scarlet Tanager is what your photo shows.

It looks like your bird is just about ready to "sneeze"!
 
I have seen every single species of Piranga that occurs in the US, and several Neotropical species. I have *never* seen one with a bill (both in terms of shape and colour) like the individual on the photo. Females of Hooded Oriole do NOT have a black tail, infact they can be rather similar to Bullock's females. Have a look at the female on this link:
http://www.bjgeiger.com/birds/Bhtm/Orioles.html
Similarly bill colour is wrong for BOTH the Tanagers and the Orioles. Finally, as mentioned before, tail shape all wrong for a Piranga.
I have seen juv's. of Western T., and their bill is very similar to the adults, only a few very young individuals I have seen seemed to have a somewhat shorter bill than the adults (hence even less like the bird the on the photo). I have not seen juv's or imm's of the two orioles - at least none I can remember right now.

Having said all this I'd still like to repeat what I have said before: I am certainly not to happy about calling it a tanager, but I am only marginally more pleased with calling it an Oriole.
 
Last edited:
Scarlet Tanagers, as a rule certainly do not have wing bars. But if you have access to a "Sibley's Guide to Birds" and look on page 463 you will see an illustration of a bird that closely approximates the photo being reviewed on this thread. Sibley even states "some show weak wing bars".
 
Larry, I just looked in my Sibley's, and you are right. It must be quite rare, I have never seen even an indication of wing-bars in Scarlet.
Even with the wingbar matching the rest just doesn't. Note the bill (shape & colour) of Scarlet Tanager is very different... try and compare the first photo with the links I've supplied later.

I really don't think we are going to get an exact id on this one... :eek!:
 
Last edited:
Another photo

Hi everyone,

I don't know if this photo will help the discussion or not but here goes. We used levels in Photoshop elements to brighten it up as it was very backlit.

Fenris
 

Attachments

  • unknown bird.jpg
    unknown bird.jpg
    55.7 KB · Views: 224
WOW... it is that young! Obviously left the nest a relatively short time before this photo being taken! No wonder we are having problems with the id!
 
Warning! This thread is more than 20 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Similar threads

G
Western Wood Pewee?
Replies
1
Views
383
qwerty5
qwerty5
G
First Winter Glaucous-Winged Gull? San Diego, CA, USA
Replies
1
Views
484
lou salomon
lou salomon
O
Kingbird - North-east Tennessee
Replies
2
Views
318
Owen Krout
O
Henry_Flower
ID my bunting? Spremberger Talsperre, Germany
Replies
4
Views
809
dantheman
dantheman
Lisa W
ID from sound Southern Oregon coast, USA 16 Sep
Replies
3
Views
460
Lisa W
Lisa W

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top