Which bird have you wanted to claim but couldnt (1 Viewer)

[russkie]

Have you ever thought you had seen a species but everything pointed to it being a dubious record. Mine was on a trip to Menorca where I swore I had seen a Lammergeier. I had great views in my scope but no-one to confirm my id. Field guides persuaded me that it was not a possible sighting and I could find no records of the species in Menorca. I didnt (and still don't) have the confidence in my birding ability to report the sighting and it is still on my unseen list.

 

[viator]

Several pitta species - saw or imagined various body parts over 10s of minutes but not enough to confirm before they turn on their invisibility cloak and left wondering if imagined the whole thing

 

[Mysticete]

I had some miscellaneous interesting seabirds from Ferries around Japan during my summer living there. While I did okay on the "common" and obvious species, there are several other birds I THINK I may have seen but just don't have the experience to be sure I saw what I saw.

 

[thomasbarker81]

I was at Dungeness in August a few years a go, I got onto a falcon at some distance, it was small dark and quickly moving away from me and it felt very good for Eleonora's Falcon but poor views for 30 seconds meant I didn't do anything about it. Then a couple of days later one was seen and photographed in Cornwall at Porthgwarra, possibly a coincidence, who knows!

 

[WACCOE]

Have you ever thought you had seen a species but everything pointed to it being a dubious record. Mine was on a trip to Menorca where I swore I had seen a Lammergeier. I had great views in my scope but no-one to confirm my id. Field guides persuaded me that it was not a possible sighting and I could find no records of the species in Menorca. I didnt (and still don't) have the confidence in my birding ability to report the sighting and it is still on my unseen list.

I'll think it must of been Eygptian Vulture that you saw they are resident on Menorca.

 

[Maffong]

I started birding in Ecuador five years ago. I didn't have good field guides, good bins nor much experience but I still became better with everyday and am pretty certain, that my fault rate in the end was below 5-10%. I might not have spotted the rarer species, but I found a fair lot of common and uncommon species, in the end 480 species.
One day I was birding around Coca in the eastern lowlands and in some wetlands flushed a big flock of big birds, including Black and Turkey Vultures, Snowy, Great Egrets and Little Blue Herons, Anhinga, Wattled Jacana and Southern Lapwing. But there was one more bird, a big grey heron. I knew there were only two such species in ecuador: Cocoi and Great Blue Heron. Having just seen several GBHs in Galapagos I didn't see anything that didn't match, but after a little research back home I noticed this would have been an extremely rare sighting.
3 days later I returned to the same spot, this time more cautious in hope not to flush the birds. And indeed all those Vultures, Lapwings, etc. didn't fly away. Only one bird flushed: The big grey heron. Again I only had brief views, but this time I focused on the head pattern and it was certainly not that of a Cocoi, but that of a Great Blue Heron. But before I could see any more features it had already disappeared. This would have constituted the first or second record of Great Blue Heron in the amazonian lowlands of Ecuador.
However I'm not sure if maybe young Cocois might look just like Great Blues and what features would have been the distinguishing ones, since I can't really find any reliable pictures of these on the internet.
In the end I ended submitting this bird as Cocoi that looks like Great Blue Heron. Ironically two years later just 2km away a GBH was found and photographed

Maffong

 

[temmie]

A fairly large, strange raptor in Madagascar, shortly flying down a slope just above the canopy.
Long tail, fairly short wings, quite big but far away.

Best bet is still Madagascar Serpent Eagle. Aaaargh!

 

[osprey123]

Despite submitting good notes and watching it for several minutes at close range, my Caspian Tern sighting at Llandegfedd Reservoir back in the early 2000's was rejected! Had seen the species before and was positive of the I'd but it still got dumped.

 

[Mike Crawley]

Saw a Great Snipe which disappeared over a hill / hedge
Unfortunately, not only couldn't I refind the bird but it was on private land on Scilly.
I knew what I had seen but couldn't write enough to prove it to myself, never mind a rarity committee.

 

[Nutcracker]

Several pitta species - saw or imagined various body parts over 10s of minutes but not enough to confirm before they turn on their invisibility cloak and left wondering if imagined the whole thing

I wanted to claim Wholemeal Pitta for the only one I've seen, but it got rejected as it's not on the IOC list :C

 

[Young Birder]

Black Falcon, New Zealand not accepted. it was the second report for that area with in 5 months and both (mine plus another sighting) were turned down.
Many of these are raptors aren't they?

 

[Trystan]

There are any number of birds that got away, from holidays out of Europe especially where I am far less familiar with the species likely to be encountered but my most frustrating recent experience was with Crested coot in Spain.

Right location but terrible distance and light in a lake with 100s common coots. Picked up some of the needed features but in the haze I just wasn't confident enough to put it on the life list.

 

[Zheljko]

When I started using eBird my life list (compiled by uploading all lists I found around the house) seemed much smaller than I remembered, and the needs alerts repeatedly showed uncommon birds that I was certain I saw at least once. I briefly had my "I don't know whether I saw this bird or not" list. (I was not sure if I saw them in dreams or in nature documentaries; for some I remembered location but I had nothing written down.)
In the meantime many of these birds were seen properly so now they are on my real life list; for a few of them I am now sure that the "previous sighting" was not that bird at all.

 

[avesjohn]

Back in October 2013, while birding at the Laguna Rd. tamarisks in Oxnard (coastal Ventura County), I'm fairly certain I ran into a Yellow-green Vireo that had been reported earlier in the week - and was reported again later on - but the bird was skulky and I couldn't confirm it. The vireo would have been a lifer for me. They show up in coastal southern California every fall, but I still haven't seen one.

Of course, I did see two other lifers that day (Prothonotary Warbler and Red-throated Pipit), so I can't complain too much about missing one more.

 

[Pris Ris Scott]

on my first visit to isle of sheppey in January earlier this year, I was watching a couple of marsh harriers doing their thing through my scope, when one (a female) took my interest because it had different markings, including a noticeable white rump. i enjoyed them for a while then headed back down the path to watch the bearded tits etc. only in the pub afterwards whilst flicking through my Collins bird guide that I spot that in fact Hen Harriers have that white rump.... i am still yet to have a confirmed sighting of Hen Harrier, and have literally been counting the days until we go back to Sheppey this winter to give it another shot

 

[trw]

A Redwing in eastern Greenland a few years ago.
Without doubt it was a Redwing, but my record was laughed out of court.
Saw 2 Yellow Wagtail on migration a few weeks ago-a real rarity these days.My instinct said they were but the view was distant and fleeting so I didn't report it.

 

[Gladiator96]

I saw a bird which doesn't exist. Does that count?

 

[West End Birder]

A Golden Oriole over the M27 as I was driving to work earlier this year. Couldn't have been anything else but just couldn't bring myself to believe what I had seen.

 

[MJB]

A Golden Oriole over the M27 as I was driving to work earlier this year. Couldn't have been anything else but just couldn't bring myself to believe what I had seen.

I think I'm right in saying that Golden Oriole has been recorded in every English county (I'm not sure about Watsonian vice-counties, though...:eek!.
MJB

 

[Nutcracker]

I think I'm right in saying that Golden Oriole has been recorded in every English county (I'm not sure about Watsonian vice-counties, though...:eek!.
MJB

I'd assume yes to Watsonian vice-counties, fairly safely - they're just about annual even up here in Northumbs vc 67 and 68, and far from all on the coast either, quite a few inland records.

Wouldn't be surprised if there's also records from every Scottish and Welsh county and VC too. Don't know about Ireland.