Most misidentified birds in your area (1 Viewer)

[jogresh]

One that's falling into history is Magpies on Shetland. Claimed by visiting birders regularly when they just weren't there, but now they are.

Ah yes that's a rich seam to start mining - the visiting birder seeing birds that u don't get in a particular area. Happens a helluva lot. Again, I've probably done it myself at some point! 🤔🤷🐦

 

[Farnboro John]

Ah yes that's a rich seam to start mining - the visiting birder seeing birds that u don't get in a particular area. Happens a helluva lot. Again, I've probably done it myself at some point! 🤔🤷🐦

The Shetland Magpie story is slightly different from most of those as it involves experienced birders (and some Shetlanders) keen to add a vagrant Magpie - that they know doesn't occur on Shetland - to their Shetland lists. Most of us, including me, have now done so, but it did involve twitching a Magpie. 😁

I had the same experience at the other end of the British Isles to get Magpie on Scilly. Even worse it involved a boat to St Martins and not only that but the first time we got soaking wet, freezing cold and dipped, so had to do it again.....

John

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

The Shetland Magpie story is slightly different from most of those as it involves experienced birders (and some Shetlanders) keen to add a vagrant Magpie - that they know doesn't occur on Shetland - to their Shetland lists. Most of us, including me, have now done so, but it did involve twitching a Magpie. 😁

John

I'm not sure that in any way contributed to the number of erroneous claims. If you know a bird is a vagrant in an area you'd generally take more care, ensure you had a photograph etc. I think a lot of it was quite the opposite, people who didn't know Magpies were so rare in Shetland. There were similar issues with Coal Tit claims before the floodgates well and truly opened this autumn.

 

[Farnboro John]

I'm not sure that in any way contributed to the number of erroneous claims. If you know a bird is a vagrant in an area you'd generally take more care, ensure you had a photograph etc. I think a lot of it was quite the opposite, people who didn't know Magpies were so rare in Shetland. There were similar issues with Coal Tit claims before the floodgates well and truly opened this autumn.

You might think so.... the trouble is that a Magpie is not just a vagrant but a big bird that British birders know well and are accustomed to semi-ignoring. That means that as they drive past a Lerwick garden and see a flash of black and white out of the corner of their eye they think "Magpie!" not "garden ornament"! And who on earth would feel the need of a photo of a Magpie whether to validate it or for other than the most sunlit purply-green aesthetic purposes? "Its a Magpie, of course I know what one looks like". Meaning how dare you doubt it!

There can also be a feeling that its coming sooner or later so some people are kind of on a hair trigger anticipation of the event.

I take your Coal Tit point though. A couple of years ago I left a Bluethroat and literally ran past a Bluetail to get to a Blue Tit....

But it doesn't matter now.

John

 

[lgonz1008]

In South Florida, we have lots of exotics, the fun part of telling apart different Psittacara parakeets, normally they wouldn't meet in their native habitat, but that's a problem here.

Add on those issues between migrating Empids and wintering Myiarchus Flycatchers, juvenile winter gulls (Herring, LBBG, GBBG), and confusing waterfowl (eclipse plumage, Scaups and scope views half a mile out to sea or a large lake).

 

[JWN Andrewes]

A few years ago (2018?) I was talking to one of the wardens at Lakenheath, asking about Golden Orioles. He said that they only ever got reported by visiting birders, never by locals. The focus by then was on trying to manage the wooded areas to encourage Lesser Spotted Woodpecker & Nightingale and to more or less write the Orioles off as a thing of the past.

 

[birdmeister]

The chickadee pair was brought up earlier in this thread, but not specifically the hybridization of the two. Black-capped and Carolina Chickadees have a hybrid zone that stretches across much of Pennsylvania. The fact that Carolina is slowly advancing the hybrid zone north means that many field guides are out of date. As a result, new (and sometimes visiting) birders often report e.g. Black-capped in midsummer well south of the current hybrid line. Add the fact that Black-capped makes regular incursions south every 2 yrs or so, and it gets really confusing!

 

[MohoNobilis]

Speaking of magpies, beginner birders in Hong Kong often confuse oriental magpie-robins with oriental magpies. Despite their major size difference, I have seen this mistake occur at least three times while birding, and non-birders have confused the two so many times, leading to them telling me that there were "magpies" in a certain area of interest, only for me to leave the area slightly disappointed.

 

[jogresh]

A few years ago (2018?) I was talking to one of the wardens at Lakenheath, asking about Golden Orioles. He said that they only ever got reported by visiting birders, never by locals. The focus by then was on trying to manage the wooded areas to encourage Lesser Spotted Woodpecker & Nightingale and to more or less write the Orioles off as a thing of the past.

I know at least 1 person who ticked Oriole there, described to me as flying up from the ground in a meadow - a Green Woodpecker. I've heard of others doing the same. I honestly didn't have the heart to tell them.. 🤷🐦

 

[opisska]

Interesting thing with the divers. Here "in the eastern Europe", Black-throated is the default species. Yes, there are some Red-throated, not a rarity, but still any diver seen is considered Black-throated unless proven otherwise.

 

[cajanuma]

In Italy, Long-legged and Rough-legged Buzzards have to be among the most mis-identified birds. Just about any paler than usual Common Buzzard is going to be posted online with the caption "is this a Long-legged?". With Rough-leg, there is an issue with juvenile Honey Buzzards in migration in late August/September catching out even experienced birders. The problem is that some of these sightings make it into print...

With foreign birders, some of the problem species are birds that are mapped for Italy in most field guides but in fact no longer occur here. Orphean Warbler often gets reported by foreign birders in spite of the fact that there can't be more than 10 breeding pairs (if that) in Italy, and the same goes for Lanner, which is tragically disappearing from Italy.

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

Strangely enough, I saw a Black-throated Diver at Girdle Ness today - my first for a couple of years. Mark had some Twite as well, so it was a good day for some local misidentification specialities.

 

[dantheman]

re Divers - here in Cornwall Great Northern and Black-throated the commoner two species, Red-throated more of a rarity, (although perhaps an increase in recent years, and always been some towards the east of the county). I've seen hardly any down here tbh.


I recall having to fill out a rarity description report for a flock of 7 Black-throated flying south past the Farne Islands (Northumberland) years ago.

 

[Mark Harper]

At my local patch Whitburn Coastal Park the two main confusion species seem to be Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Rock Pipits, whilst both are seen occasionally and Rock Pipits are a common winter visitor 0.5km to the south of the Park whenever I see these on a visitors ebird checklist, but no Great Black-backed Gulls or Meadow Pipits I tend to think that they have misidentified.

One other factor that I wonder whether is relevant is memory failure. I know often when completing ebird lists I struggle to remember whether I saw some of the common species like Woodpigeon that I just tune out, I assume I must have as it is hard to miss them so put them on the list. If this approach is applied at locations that an observer is not overly familiar with could explain some records such as Magpie on Shetland.

 

[dantheman]

At my local patch Whitburn Coastal Park the two main confusion species seem to be Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Rock Pipits, whilst both are seen occasionally and Rock Pipits are a common winter visitor 0.5km to the south of the Park whenever I see these on a visitors ebird checklist, but no Great Black-backed Gulls or Meadow Pipits I tend to think that they have misidentified.

One other factor that I wonder whether is relevant is memory failure. I know often when completing ebird lists I struggle to remember whether I saw some of the common species like Woodpigeon that I just tune out, I assume I must have as it is hard to miss them so put them on the list. If this approach is applied at locations that an observer is not overly familiar with could explain some records such as Magpie on Shetland.

I've never mistaken a Lesser Black-backed Gull for a Rock Pipit ...

;-)


On the filling out of 'assumed' species, surely that is 'cheating' and strictly speaking shouldn't be carried out at all? I guess people may do it though? Or add to a list on a poor view that wasn't conclusive, whereas if they knew how rare they would nail it properly (or leave it out)?? (Eg it was probably a Jay or something)

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

One other factor that I wonder whether is relevant is memory failure. I know often when completing ebird lists I struggle to remember whether I saw some of the common species like Woodpigeon that I just tune out, I assume I must have as it is hard to miss them so put them on the list. If this approach is applied at locations that an observer is not overly familiar with could explain some records such as Magpie on Shetland.

I hope that there aren't many people recording species on ebird like that, it isn't what they should be doing. They'd also be prompted to provide details for Magpie in Shetland as it's locally notable. And a standard 'uk ebird submission' would include a hatful of Shetland scarcities - at least four tits, Jays, Pheasant, Treecreeper, Nuthatch etc etc.

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

One other factor that I wonder whether is relevant is memory failure. I know often when completing ebird lists I struggle to remember whether I saw some of the common species like Woodpigeon that I just tune out, I assume I must have as it is hard to miss them so put them on the list. If this approach is applied at locations that an observer is not overly familiar with could explain some records such as Magpie on Shetland.

Woodpigeon is an interesting one. Around my way, they're generally extremely common and one of the first birds I see if I go birding. But at this time of year (November - December) they actually become quite scarce and, although there are a few around, it's easy to miss them. For example, I've been out most of the day today and haven't seen one. I suspect some people may just put them on their list around here at this time of year because they 'must' have seen one but maybe they didn't.

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

I hope that there aren't many people recording species on ebird like that, it isn't what they should be doing. They'd also be prompted to provide details for Magpie in Shetland as it's locally notable. And a standard 'uk ebird submission' would include a hatful of Shetland scarcities - at least four tits, Jays, Pheasant, Treecreeper, Nuthatch etc etc.

It probably makes a difference if people are doing the list in the field with an app (or making proper notes in a notebook) or if they try to compile the list later on from memory. The latter is where the mistakes are more likely to slip in.

 

[Farnboro John]

I hope that there aren't many people recording species on ebird like that, it isn't what they should be doing. They'd also be prompted to provide details for Magpie in Shetland as it's locally notable. And a standard 'uk ebird submission' would include a hatful of Shetland scarcities - at least four tits, Jays, Pheasant, Treecreeper, Nuthatch etc etc.

Depends where you go, hard to miss Pheasant at Hillswick I'm afraid.

John

 

[Farnboro John]

It probably makes a difference if people are doing the list in the field with an app (or making proper notes in a notebook) or if they try to compile the list later on from memory. The latter is where the mistakes are more likely to slip in.

Concur, though if you can't specifically remember the bird (and I mean you have to be able to conjure the sighting with your mind's eye) you shouldn't list it.

John