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What's the rarest/most unusual bird you've seen in the wild? (1 Viewer)

I saw Purple Swamphen in both Gosku Delta (Turkey) and Coto Donana (spain). Both times it was a complete shock and the first time I exclaimed "What the **** is that? There's a moorhen as big as a goose and its turquoise! :D

I wasn't expecting one and it took a moment to suss out what it was as it disappeared.
 
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probably the rarest is the magnificant frigate bird. the ones with the puffy red throat that you always see on national geographic.

the oddest bird is the boat billed heron.
 
I havent seen a lot of rare birds as i dont really twitch that much but here goes

Black winged stilt
Lesser yellowlegs
arctic redpoll
ring necked duck
Little bunting

Thats it
 
Probably the rarest birds i have seen were in peru.."Eye-ringed Thistletail,...maybe a new Species of Thryothorus wren ??...Black-spectacled Brush-Finch...the very localised White-bellied cinclodes....Tschudis Tapaculo..some real megas on a great great trip..
 
i did like finding a squacco heron in the uk last year. beautiful bird but that was seen to death round here as where the common cranes.
 
In terms of not often seen , how about a female Sri Lanka Whistling Thrush ?
For unusual....maybe a pure white Common Starling with a bright yellow bill. Looked a bit like a tiny Cattle Egret as it walked around in a cow pasture.
 
Off the top of my head, I think of two that fit both rare and unusual. Cassowary and Marbled Frogmouth. Oh, chowchillas too.
 
I have never seen any critically endangered birds in the wild, but for rare birds, I guess the 2nd MI record for Western Tanager was probably the rarest.
 
The rarest bird I have seen on PNG is Papuan swiftlet or maybe Brown-headed crow, both seen just once and they are both very rare on PNG.

Otherweise its Tabon scrubfowl seen on Northern Borneo.
 
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A single Fork-tailed Flycatcher at Hornsby Bend, Austin, Texas late summer last year. It caused a bit of excitement at the time since it was rare for the USA, let alone Texas. Just lucky that I happened to be there!
 
Rarity and unusual sometimes don't go together.
I've just returned from the Falklands after enjoying a
birding experience of a lifetime - soaking up the atmosphere - and
aroma - of a mixed colony of Black-browed Albatrosses and
Rockhopper penguins. The Falklands hosts around 70 per cent of the world
population of the globally endangered albatrosses whose future is very much threatened by factory-style fishing in the South Atlantic.
The irony is the experience is often marred by the noisy and kleptomaniac
tendencies of the Striated Caracaras that haunt the colonies for tit-bits.
Anyone not paying enough attention to cameras, videos and binoculars can
rue the experience as they watch the caracaras lift off with expensive optics
in their talons, which are then duly dropped over the side of an awaiting cliff.
And the irony? At around 500 pairs worldwide, the caracaras are one of the
planet's rarest raptors!

S
 
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Not being, even remotely, a 'world birder' I have seen one bird that is pretty rare in a global context - a Jamaican Blackbird. I believe it is the only species of an endemic genus, with a small and declining population.

'The most unusual' covers a bunch of scenarios - how about a Gannet that sailed over my head and landed among Mute Swans on a gravel pit in Hertfordshire? I was taking a bins-less stroll while waiting for my car to be MOT'd. "Hmm", I remember thinking at the time, "that's unusual" !!

Edit - by the way, Hello Stuart. Seems a long time since 'Best Days with British Birds'......
 
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Gavin Haig said:
Not being, even remotely, a 'world birder' I have seen one bird that is pretty rare in a global context - a Jamaican Blackbird. I believe it is the only species of an endemic genus, with a small and declining population.

'The most unusual' covers a bunch of scenarios - how about a Gannet that sailed over my head and landed among Mute Swans on a gravel pit in Hertfordshire? I was taking a bins-less stroll while waiting for my car to be MOT'd. "Hmm", I remember thinking at the time, "that's unusual" !!

Edit - by the way, Hello Stuart. Seems a long time since 'Best Days with British Birds'......
Click to expand...
Was that Gannet sp. Gav ?
 
Larry Wheatland said:
Was that Gannet sp. Gav ?
Click to expand...
Actually it was a Northern-for-pedants Gannet, Laz......other species in Hertfordshire still elude me........

You nomenclatoral purist, you....or is that -toric?
 
A difficult question

I suppose a few birds have to share it Spix macaw, Blue-billed curassow, Black tinamou, Sapphire-bellied hummingbird, Red siskin or maybe Pale-headed Brush-finch.

But the Northern Helmeted curassow cant be forgotten, among the most intresting and remarkable birds of Northern South America.
 
hmmm, for me, that would be.... House Sparrows? :D

Pleske's Ground Jay, endemic to Iran

Dalmation Pelican in the Fars Province and the Island of Qeshm

Lammergeier in Shiraz

Crab Plovers in the Island of Qeshm

White Tailed Sea Eagles on the Caspian seacoast

Of course, not all are really rare, for example I saw at least 60 white-tailed eagles... But the encounters where quite amazing for me...

smiles
sam
 
Rarest bird in Britain is probably the Canvasback in Kent in 2000. Other things in the UK include Whiskered Tern, Desert Wheatear and Pallid Harrier - all in Kent. Haven't really been abroad to see anything particularlly amazing.
 
david2004 said:
I haven't really seen any, but I most enjoyed watching sand martins and marsh harriers at Minsmere.
Click to expand...


I have been rewarded by sighting both an albino robin, and an albino red tailed hawk in the wild. Both were snow white, I was amazed at the sighting of both. Not totally sure if they were true albinos, but there weren't a speck of brown or black on them.

How did I identify them you ask? The song of the robin is un-mistakeable, and the hawk, it's posture, sizes, and actions were enough to lead me to belive it was a red tail... (or it that, white tail?)

I have spotted sandhill cranes migrating over my home in Ohio several times during the migration.

Cardinal man
 
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