Worst misidentification (1 Viewer)

[Pete Mella]

Anyone else mistaken a feral Mallard for anything?

Yes... I walked half way round a local reservoir once because I thought I'd spotted a drake smew, only to find a weird-looking black and white mutant mallard monstrosity.

Last weekend I thought I'd found a little egret, but it turned out to be a football.

Sometimes it works the other way - a couple of years ago I was in Northumberland and was scanning the sea and confidently identified a juvenile cormorant. It was a while later I realised the juvenile cormorant was actually some species of diver, at a time when I hadn't seen any of them.

I live in Sheffield. We don't have much sea. That's my excuse! :-C

I'm sure I've done worse that I can't remember.

 

[DaveN]

Done Cormorant as Diver many times (quite distant mind) and plastic bag too. Had a Great Grey Shrike turn up locally several years ago and was scanning the bushes and exclaimed GOT IT. Proceeded to set scope up and found it to be a carrier bag.

Had many soaring Buzzards that were actually Cesnas. 3 Shelduck on local pool and somebody said "3 Pochard there" err no, Shelduck.

 

[ntbirdman]

I stalked a rock halfway around a pond once, thinking it was a yellowlegs.

 

[[email protected]]

In April I had just seen 3 Common Crane fly over and after about 20 minutes they returned. I was well chuffed. 30 minutes after an elderly couple were walking toward me the lady asked me if I seen anything interesting and I told her about the cranes. She looked at her husband for his comment and he said oh yes they get them in Wigan!! No wonder I hadnt been able to add them to my life list i've been going the wrong place.

 

[KnockerNorton]

Last weekend I thought I'd found a little egret, but it turned out to be a football.

That reminds me of a more recent cock-up. Was doing my TTV in Yorks during the time when there were tons of Cattle Egrets around the country. Through heat haze, I saw a dazzling white head/neck with a big yellow bill strutting about in a wet dip in a wheat crop, running around to grab insects. Distance was about half a mile and the view was heavily hazed. Still, it was nailed on for a Cattle Egret, even though i could only see the head and neck - the jizz seemed obvious. Literally jogged around 2 sides of the field to get a better angle, only to find that this particular fuzzy egret had a dark grey back as it flushed and turned out to be a Lesser Black-backed Gull.....

It was a much more understandable error at the time, honest!

 

[KnockerNorton]

Most embarrassing i.d. has to be the guy who collected the first Puffin scientific specimen - a chick from a burrow, and proudly named it Puffinus puffinus.

That's how Manx Shearwater got its odd scientific name.

 

[Drumming Sniper]

I spend a fair bit of time watching the Peregrine pair at Symonds Yat Rock. The falcons share the rock faces with large numbers of Jackdaws and the latter species is much given to sailing out from the cliffs in noisy groups of five, ten, twenty etc. I have lost count of the number of times potential Peregrine spotters have turned up, clocked the Jackdaws and shouted, "There's the Peregrines!"

I suppose it's that old thing - We've heard that there's Peregrines here, we can see some birds flying around, therefore we're seeing a flock of Peregrines. Trouble is, I can never quite decide whether to put them right or not.

The local Common Buzzards get labelled as eagles pretty regularly...if only!!!

DS

 

[dantheman]

In north kent a few years back was looking for a Spoonbill. (Was looking the wrong side of the marshes, but did manage to see it on the way back by chance). Anyway after an hour or so I hadn't seen anything, was feeling a bit knackered, and fell asleep sitting down where I was. Anyway, woke up groggy, just as an old guy turned up. Bit relieved hadn't been caught napping. . . I carried on birding as if I had just been sat there birding all along, and pointed out a distant string of 15 or so white birds flying past. 'Wow' I exclaimed. 'Those must be Smew'.

'Erm, Avocets' he said.

. . . I kind of wished I'd stayed asleep.

In the past I've called the wrong names sometimes, not actually a misid, like Reed Warbler for Reed Bunting on an RSPB trip in early march, and Spotted Sand when it was a Spotted Redshank we were hoping to see in a hide half full of people . .

In Tunisia years ago with uni birding society from Sheffield, we were near the Sahara somewhere when someone (not me) managed to pick up a Houbara Bustard. Excellent, probably a lifer for most of us. It was resting up facing away, it was just a matter of waiting for it to stir and show better views. . . Which it didn't, when a Wheatear flew up from the rock it was sitting on . . .



I will continue to make more boring ones, like attempt to string Common Buzzards as Marsh Harriers at Dungeness, despite clearly seeing the underwing pattern . . . (reverse stringing that - turning rarer birds into commoner ones) . . etc, also here on BF q&a threads

 

[jurek]

Lapwing as Hoopoe. Against the light. o

The worst thing, I came passing to some marsh where were some younger and very-very hardcore birders (sort of I was myself few years earlier). They looked at me with this "annoying and total dude" look.

 

[DaveN]

At Breydon water several years ago I was talking to some chap when I spotted a small flock of Avocets flying in the distance and I said flock of Kittiwakes there. He soon put me right.

 

[Pete Mella]

I once mistook one of those plastic pigeon-scaring peregrines for a real one once, does that count?

 

[glynnsmith]

young Magpies

...an easy way to tell a young Magpie, apart from them being all black and very erratic flyers, are the greasy black smudges all over your kitchen walls and windows....

...haven't really seen one since the chimney was capped.
They are also easily mistaken for a ghost or intruder when 'roosting' behind a boarded up fireplace. That was a strange year, two youngsters down the same chimney on different days. Typically, the second one arrived just after we had finished cleaning up after the first.

I've also done the "oh look it's a *****" in the hide....and when the others turned around all they could see was a red faced optimist. Probably not a lifetime first for any birder that was present.

I'm so pleased this happens to experienced birders too.

 

[Pete Mella]

I've also done the "oh look it's a *****" in the hide....and when the others turned around all they could see was a red faced optimist. Probably not a lifetime first for any birder that was present.

A fella did that at Blacktoft a couple of weeks ago, saw a grey bird with a long red bill coming out of the reeds and excitedly called a water rail, but it was just a redshank. He'd realised the split second after he shouted.

To be honest I'd rather people do that than see things and keep it to themselves!

 

[glynnsmith]

I'm still at the stage where I do more asking than declaring...fortunately. I'll probably hover around this stage for a very long time as I just know my voice will jump into action a fraction before my brain when excited. :-O

 

[Lichfield Birder]

1)
5) My favourite I've ever heard of - cow pat for a Nighthawk.

Yeah, wasn't that on Scilly. Was watched and ticked for about 24 hours by many, until it was apparent it had never moved, and realisation dawned...

 

[Jan-Paul Charteris]

When I started birding, Crows with bread in their bills were always Rooks So the local playing fields in NW London (where Rooks are rare), suddenly became inundated by 'rook' sightings until I straightened myself out.

At Brent Res in London I was sat with an old birding pal in the hide a good few years ago when he suddenly said 'bloody hell...white heron over those reeds!'. Little Egret had never been recorded there before despite it being a very well watched location, so we assumed it was one (neither of us were beginners, it was just that once we decided a white heron there must be Little Egret it was properly cemented in our, now closed off, brains). It flew around for ages, did a circuit of the reservoir, landed briefly on the bank in the open, next to a Grey Heron, then flew again directly over our heads and towards the smaller North Marsh. I was dead happy and let Max wait in the hide while I legged it to phone out the site's first Little Egret. Later I got a call from Andrew Self to say he'd relocated it in flight, noted it was bloody big with a yellow bill and black feet etc etc... I embarrassingly recalled at this point that it had stood tall over the Grey Heron it had landed next to at one point and realised I'd nearly cocked up London's first ever Great White Egret....

Also with herons, when a young lad and birding with my Dad I once swore blind to him that there were about 20 Grey Herons walking in a long line through the long grass near the reservoir... turned out to be the tops of masts on the sailing boats..

Wont even go to Ring-billed Gulls..'saw' a few of them when in my mid-teens before I knew what a proper one looked like too

Suppose everyone makes cock-ups in their early days

Jan

 

[DaveN]

In my very early birding days I had a few gems. I often look back at my notes and wonder what the hell was I thinking.

They do a bit of a Pheasant shoot in my local woods and they were every where. Some of the darker ones was put down as Black Grouse. Any bright looking Willow/Chiff instantly became a Wood Warbler.

On a walk one day I saw a yellow bird which I thought was a Cirl Bunting, I presume it was a Yellowhammer but it was that long ago.

 

[Jan-Paul Charteris]

Any bright looking Willow/Chiff instantly became a Wood Warbler.

Lol yeah I must admit to still remembering the surprise on a birder's face at Brent Res when my Dad and I said we'd had a Wood Warbler in the bush we were standing next to, which soon became a doubting expression when we said we'd had about 15 there that day! Every Willow Warbler with the slightest hint of yellow became one I think

Thank God most birders get less stringy with time

Jan

 

[draycotebirding]

Yeah, wasn't that on Scilly. Was watched and ticked for about 24 hours by many, until it was apparent it had never moved, and realisation dawned...

No that was the dead one on St Agnes in September, the cow pat one was on St Mary's in October.

Went for the Pine Bunting at Daganham and my mate Dave (who in his defence had drunk too much the night before and not consulted a book before leaving) turned to me in front of quite a crowd and loudly said "Is it the yellow one?" as it fed with a flock of Yellowhammer's :eek!:
Safe to say next time he turned round to speak to me I was 50yds further down the crowd.

John

 

[ovenbird43]

Only to day whilst assisting on a RSPB guided walk I called rock dove as peregrine by the time I had realised my mistake I had all ready called
LOOK PERIGRINE RISING OVER THE CLIFF AT TEN OCLOCK.
Beside me twenty folk were going oooh, ahh, where, where. All raising there bins and all I could do was call oops sorry my mistake . Then I had to suffer a good ribbing about pigeon spotting as we trudged up the hill.

A bit of a burner to say the least…..lol

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sometimes takes pigeons for falcons... they've gotten me many times!

Probably the worst I've ever heard of was in a birding magazine over the past year or two, when somebody rescued a hairy woodpecker and called some local rehabilitators saying they had a common loon...