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ID 3 Birds I Shoot in Manhattan,ny (1 Viewer)

anesti

New member
the first is in Central Park at the Harlem Meer and the nex 2 are in the pond in Morningside park. Im thinking in the 2nd pic its a white crane, the third pic for some reason i think its an oriole but the grey one in the first pic baffles me. Im new at bird shooting,and now that i own a nikon d60 i hope to shoot more birds.
 

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The first is an immature Yellow-crowned Night Heron. The all dark bill sets it apart from the Black-crowned, which would have yellow on the lower mandible.
 
Bird #1 is a year-old Yellow-crowned Night Heron on account of the all dark bill, longer neck, and tiny white spots.
 
Also black-crowned's bill would be more pointed? or is it the other way around. I forget which one has a more blunt bill.
 
I haven't seen this plumage of night-heron before, and only now do I notice it illustrated in National Geographic. This is not a juvenile, but a first summer bird. In their first year they apparently drop their spots and overall darkness and start to attain a ghost of an adult pattern (BCNH would be dark-winged, for example, but both species apparently get dark caps). I also don't think the strucutre rules out BCNH.

Setting plumage aside, where I can only guess, Central Park is home to dozens of Black-crowned Night-Herons, and the Harlem Meer is no exception. Actually, I believe some birds (adults, as far as I know) make friends with the fisherman there and are especially tame. Yellow-crowned Night-Heron on the other hand is a VERY rare visitor to the park, and does not breed. I don't see enough evidence here to support a vagrant YCNH.
 
Hi All,

This is an interesting case of one of the those species we see all of the time in an odd plumage. It is not, strictly speaking, a juvenile, so it has lost a lot of the features used to differentiate the two species at that age. It is also not yet old enough to really exhibit any strong adult-like characteristics. One thing that really strikes me about this bird is its structure, particularly that of the bill. Night herons all have rather robust bills, but these two differ subtly in the shape of the bill. To my eye, the mandible of the mystery bird is not swollen and recurved enough to be a Yellow-crowned NH. It has more of an even tapered look, and the bill overall seems to have a slight droop near the tip, as it typical of Black-crowned. Everyone should google a bunch of night-heron images looking at the differences in shape. FWIW, the coloration of the bill is tricky at this age. I can see what looks like pale on the mandible and along the cutting edge of the maxilla. While not as bright as on juveniles, the soft part colors of herons change in the same manner they do in gulls. While not in itself conclusive, the wing looks rather uniform to me. I don't see any suggestion of darker flight feathers (a feature of Yellow-crowned), and none of the greater secondary coverts seem to have any suggestion of paler edges (another feature of Yellow-crowned). To my eyes, the bird just has the shape of an alert Black-crowned Night-Heron.

Chris
 
My first impression was Black-crowned Night-Heron based on bill shape and the fact that the bird is stretching its neck, and yet still looks somewhat short-necked.

I haven't seen this plumage of night-heron before, and only now do I notice it illustrated in National Geographic. This is not a juvenile, but a first summer bird. In their first year they apparently drop their spots and overall darkness and start to attain a ghost of an adult pattern (BCNH would be dark-winged, for example, but both species apparently get dark caps).

I just saw a similar-aged bird yesterday. I was struggling with it also, and ultimately left it unidentified. The plumage looked similar to this bird, but the structure looked better for Yellow-crowned Night-Heron. It was surrounded by Black-crowned Night-Herons, and looked noticeably longer legged, and with a differently shaped bill. In hindsight, I should have taken a photo. It would have made a great complement to this thread.

Best,
Jim
 
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