Your Most Recent "Life" Bird (5 Viewers)

[Frost]

I am only 22, but besides from at the zoo, a couple years ago I caught a Black Necked Aracari male here in Norway! Exotic pets like that are very rare here. It was autumn and it had escaped. Probably wouln't have survived much longer as it was getting colder. I managed to sneak upon it and catch it when it was eating berries in a neighbours garden. When it saw me it flew into the net that was hung over the berrybush to protect it from birds eating the berries Luckily we managed to find the owners so he got home to his mate.

 

[Frost]

Another sad meeting with a bird that I didn't experience myself, but my whole family, was when we were sailing to Denmark. We were far away from shore, and I was asleep when an eagle (Sea Eagle I assume) circled around our boat and tried to land on the pole/mast to rest. But there were many wires and things that probably scared it and made it difficult to land. So I was very sad when I woke up and heard that it had tried to land on the water, which sadly did not go well.

 

[JTweedie]

That's a shame, sounds like a really tired bird or perhaps a really young one.

 

[Lisa W]

A great day on Feb 13, with a number of new ones:
Sora, Pied-billed Grebe, Greater Scaup, Lesser Scaup, Wilson's Snipe, Bufflehead, and Gadwall. Gotta love the small amount of water you can find in Arizona.

 

[Peter C.]

Double-striped Thick-knee ( Liberia, Costa Rica)

(A real "squeeze one more in at the last minute" bird; we saw it from the plane, as the pilot awaited clearance for take-off! If LIR had two runways, would have missed it.)

 

[Steve Lister]

Slaty-breasted Rail - the last of 27 lifers during my recent Thailand trip.

Steve

 

[ammadoux]

Yemen warbler, Parisoma buryi, which is ndemic to Southern Arabia.

saw it in a small desert acacia tree, near the shore of a Alkhoumra 30 Km south of Jeddah, a real beauty and very active one with long dark tail. could not take a shot as my camera on the tripod was pointing away at the shore and although he spend some time in the open i did not want to waist watching it and admiring its beauty.

found these, fantastic shots for this stunning warbler.

http://www.arkive.org/yemen-warbler/sylvia-buryi/

 

[Azzy]

On tuesday, diamond firetail finch. And today, the weebill, a supposedly really common bird, but I have never seen them before or perhaps just never been able to id them. Today I was just walking down our street and there were some tiny birds in the tree. Too small for thornbills and I knew they weren't pardalotes, and there really is only one bird that small, so I thought it could be a weebill. I remembered the call, got back home, looked up the call, and 'lo and behold, a weebill

 

[birdonawire]

aha i had an old lifer that you didnt have azzy, amazing! woop woop! seen quite a few weebills lately mate, they seem to often hang with other little birds, like pardalotes specially, sure makes ID hard sometimes, seen a small group travelling around with 2 or 3 e. spinebills recently!, that was cool, then i phished 'em (weebill), imitated their chatter, and one flew at me thought i was a tree was gonna land on me, and realised at last second what i was, and it freaked out lol, hilarious, it seemed embarrassed?,...those internet recordings rock eh! they are common in some places man,

 

[Azzy]

It just seems that they were just one of those birds that for some weird reason, I just hadn't come across, it's strange how that happens. I'm sure there's others on your list too that I haven't seen though

The spinebills are such lovely birds. There's one around here, although I rarely ever see it, always a treat when I do though.

 

[Phil Hill]

On a recent 3 day trip to Norfolk with two friends finally saw a Golden Pheasant at Wolferton, I think half the mileage on my car has been for driving around the triangle ( Rob Gaze on his first trip to Norfolk gets one within 15 mins, lifes not fair:C ).
Also picked up Shore Lark and Rough Legged Buzzard.

 

[Robert Gaze]

Re - Golden Pheasant

On a recent 3 day trip to Norfolk with two friends finally saw a Golden Pheasant at Wolferton, I think half the mileage on my car has been for driving around the triangle ( Rob Gaze on his first trip to Norfolk gets one within 15 mins, lifes not fair:C ).
Also picked up Shore Lark and Rough Legged Buzzard.

To be honest Phil bit fed up of getting you these lifers!!!

 

[Creamcolouredcourser]

Black kite at Gigrin Farm!

 

[Jonny721]

Same as creamcolouredcouser stunning bird even better that it was in the snow!

 

[COLOMBIA Birding]

My last lifer was a superb couple of Spot-crowned Antvireo - Dysithamnus pnticeps!!!... lovely birds that I have wanted to see long long time ago!...

check
http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...rch_type=&aq=f

and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/colombi...7623488001598/

 

[pdh]

Glossy Ibis (3 actually) at Ham Wall RSPB Somerset UK

 

[Larry Lade]

My last lifer was a superb couple of Spot-crowned Antvireo - Dysithamnus pnticeps!!!... lovely birds that I have wanted to see long long time ago!...

check
http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...rch_type=&aq=f

and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/colombi...7623488001598/

Hi,Diego,

I believe you left a couple of letters out of the scientific name for your photo bird (Dysithamnus puncticeps).


Also, I could not get either the youtube or the flickr URLs to work.

A great bird though! It is always nice to be able to get a "lifer"!

Edit: I found the video(s) by going to "youTube" and searching for Spot-crowned Antvireo.

 

[Halcon]

My last lifer was an Arctic Skua on Pelagic yesterday.

 

[MacNara]

Lifer White's Thrush

I was just browsing this thread for the first time, and thought I might as well contribute, since I'm here.

I have been trying to find White's (Ground) Thrush - Zoothera dauma - for several years. The Japanese guidebook I have says it's 'common', and 'feeds chiefly on the forest floor'. I've looked around at forest floors when the movement seemed right, but it's always been Dusky Thrush (Turdus naumanni, ultra common in the winter here, but usually feeds in the open) or Pale Thrush (Turdus pallidus, also fairly common).

Last Sunday I went to see the blossoming cherries in the nearby park (grounds of the famous Nara Todaiji Great Buddha Temple, claimed to be the largest wooden building in the world). I stopped to take a photo of a Pale Thrush which was posing nicely, when there on the ground nearby was a White's Thrush. And it stayed for long enough for me to get some good shots, although it insisted on staying in the shadow.

I also saw a peregrine falcon for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and also got some nice shots of a red-flanked bluetail (Siberian bluechat), which I had glimpsed before once (it turned out that they are common near where I am, but live higher up than the hills I usually walk in).

Others in the thread have talked about trying to see a kingfisher. I spent several years trying to see a kingfisher in likely spots, and eventually saw one at quite a distance. But since last year, there have been two or three at a pond nearby (old, disused, mostly artificial, commercial carp fishing pond), and I can see them any time I want!

This small pond, where the locals like to throw garbage (much of it carefully collected in plastic sacks, and then brought here specially) and the adjacent area with a few rice fields and a park, and old burial mounds with moats, but otherwise in the middle of a city, has recorded around 80 species, and I must have seen 40 or so there myself. As Japan only has about 550 species, including one-time accidentals, and pelagic birds near remote uninhabited islands, this is pretty good.

I'm new here, so perhaps it's not for me to say, but does anyone else think it might be a good idea to break this thread down by year? It's awfully long.

 

[LabradorDuck]

Finally got my Horned Lark!

Took a drive in the country the other day. Pretty slow at first, but once I hit the fields that were partially flooded with snowmelt, things started to pick up. Saw lots of American Robins, both in big flocks and singly, several large flocks of Red-wing Blackbirds and Canada Geese, and scattered Red-tailed Hawks, Blue Jays, and Cardinals. Also, saw a FOY Killdeer. Finally, I saw a huge flock of birds sweeping across a field. Most were too far away to see clearly, but a few groups were close enough to confirm as Horned Larks. Finished off the day with a nice view of an adult male Northern Harrier, and a brief time with my car stuck in a mud puddle. I was worried I'd used up my karma on the bird sightings, but I was able to work my way out eventually.

All in all, a good day.