Worst misidentification (1 Viewer)

[jogresh]

Working at a nature reserve, we get a LOT of bad ID's. One of the more amusing ones that comes to mind was a phone call. A lady rang from her mobile to say that there was a Penguin on the beach nearby. The girl who took the call can sometimes struggle with the giggles, but she managed to compose herself and explained that it was unlikely to be a vagrant Penguin as it would have had to come all the way from the South Atlantic.
She asked what the bird was doing, to which the woman replied, "it's flying around at the moment," at which point our poor girl lost all control over herself. What was funny was not the ID - hell everyone makes mistakes - it was watching her desperately trying to talk while stifling bouts of laughter. Nothing funnier than watching someone in a pickle.
Cheers all.

 

[imam]

It was happened a few mounths ago when I observing a nest of scarlet-headed flowerpecker. I told to my friend that I just saw a monster on the nest. It look like a big-brown worm excrete something from its mouth (something like a straw)...

When my friend checked it from the scope, suddenly he laughed, laughing at me. He said, "it's not a worm. It's the chick that defecated!"

When I checked it once again, then, I agreed with him.

 

[draycotebirding]

also in april this year i was looking for an osprey on a local reserve and was sure i had found it perched in a tree, i showed it to my mum who watched it in the scope and then i took another look and looked at it for about 10 minutes. it definately wasn't an osprey, it was just the shape of that part of the tree and the colours that made it look completely like an osprey. it was like someone had carved the shape of the tree to make it look like an osprey lol. i reckon i could have got lots of birders going home having seen an osprey if i showed it to them

That reminds me at the Rutland bird fair a couple of years ago people were looking at an "Osprey" on one of the platforms, a quick glance I saw it to be an Egyptian Goose :eek!:

John

 

[DaveN]

A woman in a hide I was in said she could see a Green Woodpecker on the peanut feeder at the feeding station. I jumped up thinking that would be odd and saw two great tits feeding from the back of the nut feeder.
You could see the top half of one bird and the bottom half of the other which made it look like an elongated Great Tit but not sure where she got Green Wood from though.

 

[Clive Griffin]

I once tried to track down what I thought were young birds of prey I could hear calling at their nest in the Arta Mountains of Mallorca only to discover them to be Toads in a small pool. Luckily I was alone so mistaking amphibians for birds was not so bad as it could have been had I had a group with me. When I next took a group to the Arta Mountains I showed them the toads as well as some birds without the embaressment of a mis-call.

Don't feel too bad. I have also mistaken amphibian croaks as bird calls too. I have recently retired to live in the Arta Mountains, so perhaps they were the same toads!
Perhaps if you know some good birding spots here we could exchange notes.

Clive.

 

[Clive Griffin]

I once tried to track down what I thought were young birds of prey I could hear calling at their nest in the Arta Mountains of Mallorca only to discover them to be Toads in a small pool. Luckily I was alone so mistaking amphibians for birds was not so bad as it could have been had I had a group with me. When I next took a group to the Arta Mountains I showed them the toads as well as some birds without the embaressment of a mis-call.

Don't feel too bad. I have also mistaken amphibian croaks as bird calls too. I have recently retired to live in the Arta Mountains, so perhaps they were the same toads!
Perhaps if you know some good birding spots here we could exchange notes.

Clive.

 

[Jan-Paul Charteris]

I remember an article on separating Long-eared and Short-eared Owls in Birdwatching mag years ago, where there was a flying bird labeled as Long-eared Owl that was actually a Kestrel! Not exactly classic confusion species.

Jan

 

[DaveN]

I've just remembered this one. Was at Snettisham last September and a friend and I had 4 Shorelarks on the shingle bank. Later that day we went up to Choseley drying barns and got talking to an elderly chap. He said he had also been Snettisham and had seen 4 Cirl Buntings on the shingle bank.

Maybe we should have said something but we just left him to it.

 

[Ilya Maclean]

A few years ago, I was particularly keen to get Ring Ouzel on my year-list in Norfolk, but kept missing out on them. I went to Gun Hill / Burnham Overy Dunes, which is normally a dead cert for them in late April. I was sitting on top of one of the dunes scanning the grassy area with my scope, when I saw a distant black bird-like shape moving, with an obvious crescent-shaped white collar. Bingo I thought until I looked at again a few seconds later and realised what I'd actually seen was the head of a Canada Goose, with the body from the neck down obscured by a small grassy hump!

 

[jurek]

I was once told by a bus driver that sparrowhawk and cuckoo are actually the same bird

BTW, ancient Greeks really thought that cuckoo for the winter turns into sparrowhawk. More birds were supposed to spend winter by turning into similar species, e.g. Redstart as Robin.

This bus driver must have really od books

 

[jurek]

Oystercatcher or cow? Guys who wondered about this, changing several times, made themselves a legend.

 

[khustochka]

When I first saw a Coot of course I thought it was a duck I turned over the whole Anatidae chapter in the field guide but found nothing similar. In despair I hoped it could be a White-fronted Goose - at least, it has a white forehead...

And some time ago a took a very distant photo of a bird sitting on a pine-tree branch. The picture was very dark, the bird was totally black, with only a white spot on its wing. The silhouette was very alike the Black Grouse, even the lyre-shaped tail could be guessed!... But when I lightened the photo the colors were revealed and it obviously turned to be a Jay

And once a Flickr user posted a photo of a Blue Tit and called it a Bullfinch. Why - I still don't know...

 

[Wiktoria]

One time my grandfathers found a dead Long-eared Owl on his yard and he said me that he found a Buzzard

My worst mistakes?
- hare as a female Pheasant
- Jays as a Filedfares
- gull as a raptor
- Song Thrush as a Tree Pipit
- Greenshank as a Common Sanpiper
- Kingfisher as a swallow
- Black Phoebe as a Dark-eyed Junco
- Eastern Towhee as a Baltimore Oriole
- White-winged Dove as a Band-tailed Pigeon

a a lot others, which I don't remember

 

[Eimajm]

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

I remember a chilidhood holiday to Wales with my Dad and me mistaking various pigeons for Peregrines. Now every pigeon gets called a Pigegrine just to cover ourselves

Latest mis-id was a Black-headed Gull for a Barn Owl. Didn't have my bins and was distant and at dusk but would have bet my car on it. Following a hedge floating flight just like one, then it came closer saw the pointed wings and and confirmed BHG. I swiftly moved on.

 

[totaljohn]

Kingfisher as a swallow

did this once in reverse, on a stretch of river where kingfishers are fairly regular, in the evening light. i suppose if you see that red and blue flying low and straight over the water it's a natural thought to jump to. felt rather silly though.

i recently pointed at a silhouetted crow flying away from me and said "sparrowhawk". in my defence, it had just flown out of a patch of woods where sparrowhawks had been calling and are fairly regular. i'm a silly arse but i like to think these are learning experiences.

 

[Storm-Petrel]

a lump of plant matter as a stonechat at a distance. :eek!:|=o||^||8.|:h?:

 

[BobBRITTON]

A visitor from northern Europe reported some fulmars nesting inland on cliffs in Provence. He must have got a good view because he reported them as being large white birds with grey above and a yellow hooked beak. They turned out to be Egyptian vultures.

 

[John B (not the sloop)]

Easy mistake to make(!)

One of my neighbours was telling me the gladsome tidings that a cuckoo was calling for the first time for years in our valley.

She seemed a bit put out when I gently told her that it was, in fact, a Collared Dove.:-O

 

[DaveN]

One of my neighbours was telling me the gladsome tidings that a cuckoo was calling for the first time for years in our valley.

She seemed a bit put out when I gently told her that it was, in fact, a Collared Dove.:-O

Had a similar one to that. I was in the garden having a beer with a friend when a pigeon started calling and he asked me if it was a Cuckoo.

 

[Clive Watson]

When I was on Fair Isle last year Deryk, the warden, gave us a slide show on 'A year in the life of a Fair Isle warden'. During the summer, when tourists come to admire the puffins, someone apparently asked him what time they feed the penguins. You couldn't make it up.