LEAST exotic bird on your list (1 Viewer)

Michael Frankis · Dec 4, 2003

OK, we've had the most exotic bird on your list - now of all the birds you've seen, particularly ones that ought to be special from being rare - which were the most underwhelming?

I'll start the ball rolling with Double-crested Cormorant (the one I saw was the UK first ever), and Ring-billed Gull (a scruffy immature with dreadful table manners)

Michael

logos · Dec 4, 2003

Coots (of any species) have never done anything for me.

Spud

Jane Turner · Dec 4, 2003

I've always been wildly unimpressed by ducks. Lesser Scaup for me I think.

seb salas · Dec 4, 2003

Black Faced Bunting at Pennington Flash. The worst 1st for Britain without a shadow of a doubt. Even the Spanish Sparrow in the Lakes was better. And that was bad.

Jane Turner · Dec 4, 2003

That bunting looked so like a Dunnock it wasn't true. I only went to see it becuase I thought I ought to! I salvaged my day by seeing a truly fab Ross' Gull later on.

seb salas · Dec 4, 2003

Ross's Gull. Now that's a bird.
Pine Bunting at Bibby's nature reserve in Worcestershire is also high up on my crap list.

Andrew · Dec 4, 2003

Black Duck on Tresco, I just missed it cos I thought it was one of the several Mallards and someone told me to go back. When I did, I thought "So what, it's only a dark mallard!"

Apologies to any Black Duck lovers.

CJW · Dec 4, 2003

Juv. Common Rosefinch - aptly nicknamed "Grotfinches"

Glen Tepke · Dec 4, 2003

Scrub Greenlet on Tobago. Not a rarity, but a bird we put substantial time into finding. We had been birding with a well-known guide for most of the day and were tired and ready to get back to the hotel for a swim. But the guide kept taking us to additional locations to look for Scrub Greenlet, a very nondescript little bird, because we had not seen one and he always found them for his clients. It was clearly a point of pride for the guide. When I finally worked up the nerve to tell him that we were ready to quit, he looked so crestfallen. But then we found one on the walk out, much to everyone's relief. Glen

Michael Frankis · Dec 4, 2003

Andrew said:
Black Duck on Tresco, I just missed it cos I thought it was one of the several Mallards and someone told me to go back. When I did, I thought "So what, it's only a dark mallard!"

Apologies to any Black Duck lovers.

Hi Andrew,

That's what I think too - for my money, they should be lumped into Mallard as just a race. I've seen one, but don't keep it as a separate tick on my list.

Michael

Steve G · Dec 4, 2003

Fan-tailed warbler what a crap bird..........> zit................zit.................zit...........zit
................zit..........zit.............zit.
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....zit..................zit................zit.
.................zit...............zit...
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Not even a half decent song to salvage reputations!!

Bluetail · Dec 4, 2003

Radde's Warbler.

Jason

Jane Turner · Dec 4, 2003

Thanks for editing that Steve!

As a teenager my anti-wildfowl tendencies were developing. I went to Slimbridge, primarily to see a Laughing gull (which was in flight and flying away when I got there, so didn't make it onto my list) There was a flock of 7 grey geese and a couple of Snow Geese flying about. I pointedly refused to bins on them. Silly really since one of the Snows had a Canadian ring and they were with Beans. I've seen snows since...and they remain as uninsiring as ever!

Jane Turner · Dec 4, 2003

Bluetail said:
Radde's Warbler.

Jason

Oh no...they are lovely characterful birds...

Bluetail · Dec 4, 2003

Jane Turner said:
Oh no...they are lovely characterful birds...

Funny, I think that about Fan-tailed Warblers!

Jason

Steve G · Dec 4, 2003

Bluetail said:
Funny, I think that about Fan-tailed Warblers!

Jason

You can't be serious!!! Appreciation of Fan-tailed warblers is a cardinal symptom of Birder's Psychosis>..please seek urgent professional advice. :eek!:

Jane Turner · Dec 4, 2003

Steve G said:
You can't be serious!!! Appreciation of Fan-tailed warblers is a cardinal symptom of Birder's Psychosis>..please seek urgent professional advice. :eek!:

Oh dear, I like them too, but I've never had the urge to twitch one!

Dave B Smith · Dec 4, 2003

No one mentioned the lowly Rock Pigeon. Although I was a pigeon fancier for years, the city parks' pigeons didn't manage to get on my list for 10 years. Then this year while trying to completely update my list, I realized I had never even ticked one.

Steve G · Dec 4, 2003

Jane Turner said:
Oh dear, I like them too, but I've never had the urge to twitch one!

You'll be twitching (nervous tics!) after you see one. It's the silly bounding songflight............I can't get it out of my head..................... :-C

Stephen Dunstan · Dec 4, 2003

At the risk of supreme birding heresy ... Ivory Gull. The bird round the corner at Fairhaven clearly wasn't an albino Common Gull as someone suggested, but I was struck by the fact that if it had been it wouldn't have looked all that different. Sorry.

I would like to speak up for Common Rosefinches, Fan-tailed Warblers, Lesser Scaup and Snow Geese. If Snow Geese were known to be wild rather than unknown origin they would be very sought after, given how few we would then get. I can see Michael's point on the cormorant.

Stephen.

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