Your Most Recent "Life" Bird (2 Viewers)

[DuckNorris]

Yellow-crowned Night Heron
Green Cay Nature Center, Boynton Beach, Florida USA

 

[ClarkWGriswold]

Turkestan Shrike today at Bempton. A stunning bird.

 

[DuckNorris]

Black-crowned Night Heron
Green Cay Nature Center, Boynton Beach, Florida USA

 

[ClarkWGriswold]

Cape/Kelp Gull. Last Monday in Cambridgeshire.

 

[Telephoto Paul]

Made the trip at the weekend to go see the European Bee Eaters in Norfolk. Compared to a certain albatross, they were impeccable performers, showing non-stop the whole time.

 

[DuckNorris]

What should us newbie birders do about two species that are present in our area and are nearly identical?

I'm talking about the American Crow and the Fish Crow. I live in Florida, and I see crows all the time.

Can I put both on my life-list because by law of averages I think I must have seen at least one of each by now?

 

[Richard Prior]

What should us newbie birders do about two species that are present in our area and are nearly identical?

I'm talking about the American Crow and the Fish Crow. I live in Florida, and I see crows all the time.

Can I put both on my life-list because by law of averages I think I must have seen at least one of each by now?

As people usually say on Birdforum when they don’t approve of such a suggestion “ It’s your list so it’s your rules” !!

 

[KenM]

What should us newbie birders do about two species that are present in our area and are nearly identical?

I'm talking about the American Crow and the Fish Crow. I live in Florida, and I see crows all the time.

Can I put both on my life-list because by law of averages I think I must have seen at least one of each by now?

I believe Fish Crow generally has a more “nasal” sound to it’s call…whereas American Crow has a dryer hoarser inflection. Excepting that young Am.Crows can on occasion sound higher pitched, no doubt because their voices haven’t broken….yet.😂

 

[Mysticete]

What should us newbie birders do about two species that are present in our area and are nearly identical?

I'm talking about the American Crow and the Fish Crow. I live in Florida, and I see crows all the time.

Can I put both on my life-list because by law of averages I think I must have seen at least one of each by now?

I wouldn't. Both species however have fairly distinctive calls, so I would familiarize yourself with their calls and use that to identify them.

 

[dwallace]

Cape Gull in Cambridgeshire.

Dave W

 

[DuckNorris]

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher in Boca Raton, Florida USA

 

[Jacana]

Eurasian Scops Owl at a ringing station in central Hungary a few days ago.

 

[DuckNorris]

Common Nighthawk
Boca Raton, FL
USA

 

[DuckNorris]

Two today.

Prothonotary Warbler
Loggerhead Shrike

Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge
Palm Beach County, Florida
USA

 

[thickmike]

Turkestan Shrike at Bempton last week. What a beaut! Very confiding bird, annoying photographer snapping it from 5m or so.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Cape Gull Larus dominicanus vetula Grafham Water, Cambridgeshire, England on 7th & 8th August appears to be 815 on my Western Palearctic List as well as bumping up my more local lists. First British record.

All the best

Paul

 

[DuckNorris]

Downy Woodpecker
Boca Raton, Florida
USA

 

[DuckNorris]

Two more in Palm Beach County, Florida, USA

Belted Kingfisher
Fish Crow

I used the bird id by sound feature of the Merlin app on my phone to confirm that the crow was a fish crow.

 

[DuckNorris]

Three more at Loxahatchee Nation Wildlife Refuge, Palm Beach County, Florida USA

Sandhill Crane
Killdeer
Carolina Wren

 

[MrToad]

Two more in Palm Beach County, Florida, USA

Belted Kingfisher
Fish Crow

I used the bird id by sound feature of the Merlin app on my phone to confirm that the crow was a fish crow.

Here in Baltimore we used to have mainly American Crows in the summer and big flocks of (usually very quiet) Fish Crows in the winter, but when the West Nile Virus hammered the American Crows about 15 years ago, the Fish Crows largely replaced them as nesters. The "regular" Crows recovered over time (although I remain convinced that there was some hybridizing going on for a few years, as there were some rather odd caws from adults, back in the 1990s), but there still appears to be only about a 60:40 American:Fish mixture overall during the breeding season, with local variations. Anyway, I just remember the flat, nasal Fish crow "Cah" call by saying that Fish Crows are "the crow that quacks". Interestingly, my wife tells me that the Chinese term for crow means something like that..
Oh, and to avoid the sin of OT-ness, my last lifer was a Chiffchaff on a distressingly curtailed trip to Edinburgh, which featured a damaged Achilles tendon on arrival at Heathrow and subsequent reduced mobility. Luckily, the house we were staying in had a lovely back deck looking over a fairly wild stretch of forest, so at least I could watch the Wood-Pigeons, Jackdaws and Magpies, while hearing all the frustratingly discreet singers so close by. The Chiffchaff, luckily for me, got so wrapped up in its singing that it incautiously let me get a good look at it the day before we left.