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A part attractive, part ugly and annoying kind of bird. (1 Viewer)

Armanaeus

Member
I live at an apartment complex in Reno, NV. Last couple of weeks some birds started bothering me late at night, almost every other night. My mother suggested that they were yelling at and fighting each other. I just came out and started hurling pine cones one after another. Some of them fell back and hit the roof that is above a row of parking spots. Turns out those birds are pretty sensitive to sound. So they just took off. But a few days later they would come back.

My mother was wondering what kind of birds those are. She described them as "ugly" and "scary" (pictures are below and one of them is attached). Notice that this bird has pretty large talons and a long beak.

Please tell me what the name of this annoying species is, in English or Latin, don't matter to me.

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I live at an apartment complex in Reno, NV. Last couple of weeks some birds started bothering me late at night, almost every other night. My mother suggested that they were yelling at and fighting each other. I just came out and started hurling pine cones one after another. Some of them fell back and hit the roof that is above a row of parking spots. Turns out those birds are pretty sensitive to sound. So they just took off. But a few days later they would come back.

My mother was wondering what kind of birds those are. She described them as "ugly" and "scary" (pictures are below and one of them is attached). Notice that this bird has pretty large talons and a long beak.

Please tell me what the name of this annoying species is, in English or Latin, don't matter to me.

The branches on the photo that you included in your post remind me of the dense sort of pine tree that I saw nankeen night herons nesting in when I visited Fremantle in Australia. Do night herons in North America nest in thick pine trees? If they are anything like the Australian species, they could be almost be nesting un-noticed, or at least until the young fledge and make a lot of noise calling for food.

P.S. You could have worse things in your neighbourhood. At least nesting birds aren't there all the time!
 
Whereabouts in Reno do you live, Andrey? I see Black-crowns most regularly nowadays at Virginia Lake where there a small roost in some of the junipers. Often there's one or 2 stalking minnows & crawdads among the boulders at the water's edge. They're tame & fun to watch & attract a lot of attention from passersby--as an obvious bird watcher, I get asked about them all the time.
 
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Whereabouts in Reno do you live, Andrey? I see Black-crowns most regularly nowadays at Virginia Lake where there a small roost in some of the junipers. Often there's one or 2 stalking minnows & crawdads among the boulders at the water's edge. They're tame & fun to watch & attract a lot of attention from passersby--as an obviously bird watcher, I get asked about them all the time.

I live at Meadowood Apartments, about 10 minutes south from the Reno-Tahoe International. I see you live in Reno too.

Isn't Quak the name for them somewhere? Netherlands maybe? In Japan they think it sounds like Goi hence Goisagi :) Is interesting how the perception of bird calls vary by language :)

Speaking of sounds: those birds make some pretty disgusting noises too, as if someone is butchering them or they are throwing up. They also supply a certain rhythm: "khy-KHY-khy-KHY-khy-KHY-___-___-khy-KHY-khy-KHY-khy-KHY-___-___", doing it in the 4/4 time but as if they are trying to do it in the 3/4 and 7/8 time.
 
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