Non-Birders sightings that make you go "AAARGH!!!" (1 Viewer)

[Steve Jones]

We all get them don't we, when our 'non-birding' friends/collegues suddenly say "I saw this bird a few weeks ago flitting around in some bushes behind the ASDA store..." (and as you start thinking of the usual suspects of Jay/Chaffinch/GS Woody etc. they continue) "and it was just like a Robin but it was Blue instead of Red when it turned around"....AAARGH!!
This was April the 16th, behind the local ASDA in Preston. He told me last week. I'll bet it's gone now. (THE GUY'S EVEN GOT MY MOBILE NUMBER FOR GODS SAKE...).
It comes along with another sighting by a non-birder of 3 'long-tailed green parrots' in his Apple Tree last December (rose-ring's are very uncommon up here) which was told to me while his mate's smirked at him like he'd had too much home brew at the time..
Anyone got a worse one than this?

 

[moose1991]

Mother-in-law always comes out with some good ones.
Try geting the species from this.

Small like a Robin but it looks like it's got a brown bikini top and a has a lightning flash in it's wing.

Post your answers and I'll tell you if you get it right.

 

[Allen]

Goldfinch???

 

[moose1991]

Yes.Oh, TOO easy.

 

[Allen]

How about this from a work colleague

"A green bird but with red underneath, and bits of white in the wing"

 

[songbird6666]

My friend and her husband have just moved house, about 15 miles away to a very small village. She has come out with two for me to ponder on. She said there was this huge bumble bee in the garden, but then she realised it wasn't a bee, it was a bit bigger, but not much. So I said, what it was yellow and black striped? Yes. I'm still trying to work that one out. And on Friday, they saw this bird, it had a red chest like a robin, but it wasn't a robin, it had black and white wings. I narrowed that down to a male bullfinch, sent an email with the picture, and yes, thankfully that one was right.|=)|

 

[todd]

Steve-O, lighten up. At least they are interested in birds. Try finding a girlfriend or life mate to preoccupy yourself with. As the late, great Socrates once said, "Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things."

 

[Andy Bright]

Steve-O, lighten up. At least they are interested in birds. Try finding a girlfriend or life mate to preoccupy yourself with. As the late, great Socrates once said, "Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things."

This is clearly a light-hearted thread... someone needs to lighten up, but I'm not sure it's the contributors above your post.

 

[songbird6666]

This is clearly a light-hearted thread... someone needs to lighten up, but I'm not sure it's the contributors above your post.

Hmm, precisely what I was thinking.

 

[Bluetail]

I've had plenty that make me groan inwardly, but not in the way Steve means! The only one that's made me green with envy was way back when I was a teenager. I was lying on the floor, leafing though the plates in my brand new (first edition) copy of Peterson, Mountfort & Hollom that I'd recently been given for Christmas (or was it a birthday?) My mother looked over my shoulder and said to my father, "O look, dear: there's that funny bird we saw in the garden!". My father looked at the picture and said, "Oh yes, so it is!" They were looking at the Hoopoe!

 

[KC Foggin]

Frustration is when you have Great-Crested Flycatchers all around you and you go and buy a nest box for your neighbor to try and entice them into becoming hooked on the birds and the day after she hangs it up in her yard a Great-crested Flycatcher moves in.

 

[Gill Osborne]

Or what about your own dear husband ringing you up about five minutes before you leave for work with a description of what can only be a RED KITE!!! And apparently his workmate who was following in the car behind, who was an occasional birder, verified it as one!!! I'm STILL sulking about that one!!!

Or, when I used to work in a deli, one of our loveliest customers who would often chat to me about the birds in her garden saying she'd just had a flock of WAXWINGS in her garden in her rowan tree!!! Very hard to keep smiling and say ''Oh how lovely'' when inside you are thinking ''b****r, b****r, b****r!!!'' LOL

Sure there have been many more....just those two spring to mind first of all...

Gill

 

[Seymour Birdies]

Many years ago I was on Fair Isle returning to the observatory from the heligolands.

The warden's little girl came into the ringing room and asked me what I had caught. A starling I replied.

"Oh" she said thoughtfully. "Sometimes we get pink ones" !!

PAAAHHH !!!!!!!!!

Seymour

 

[mountain man]

hmmmm...

Rock Sparrow in Shepton Mallet was very good.

 

[Gill Osborne]

The warden's little girl came into the ringing room and asked me what I had caught. A starling I replied.

"Oh" she said thoughtfully. "Sometimes we get pink ones" !!

I think that one wins LOL :clap: Typically either the week before you are there...or the week after!!!
Or on a BF Meet which you couldn't attend!!! :storm:


Oh well...sure I'll see one somewhere!!! *sigh*

Gill

 

[baccalynnwv]

Frustration is when you have Great-Crested Flycatchers all around you and you go and buy a nest box for your neighbor to try and entice them into becoming hooked on the birds and the day after she hangs it up in her yard a Great-crested Flycatcher moves in.

YES! I have been waiting to see a baltimore or even an orchard oriole in west virginia for a couple of years now. I happened to catch a glimps of one landing on my friends fence last year so this year I bought her a feeder to MAYBE see it again... thought it was just passing through.... I told her it may take a couple of days for them to find the feeder.

We spent the rest of the eve outside on her porch and 4!...FOUR!... of the birds, both orchard and baltimore showed up within 30 minutes. Couldn't believe it! I really thought about taking the feeder back.. LOL....

 

[RaptorMan]

Iv'e had some classic non birder sightings. The black woodpecker in the middle of birmingham. Turning out tob e a dark brown juvenile green woodpecker. The best was having someone who sworn they seen a pelican.

"It was in me garden after me fish and was a bit grey aswell."

I'll leave you to decide what that was!

 

[Gill Osborne]

"It was in me garden after me fish and was a bit grey aswell."

I'll leave you to decide what that was!

Aww howway man...need MORE clues than that!!!!!

Gill

 

[Pendragon]

A friend of mine got stopped by one of his mates the other week and was asked "Do swifts have white bellies? because I saw one yesterday with a white belly"
Dont you just love em...lol

 

[RaptorMan]

i know this sin't a bird sighting thing but someone asked me the other day.
"How do i feed the doves in me garden and not the pigeons." :'(