Your Most Recent "Life" Bird (8 Viewers)

[avesjohn]

Last weekend I finally saw (as opposed to just hearing) my lifer Common Poorwill. The best part? It was just a 20-minute walk from my house to the mountain trail where I searched for it at dusk, and I was rewarded with brief glimpses as it flew out of the chapparal and responded to my playback (which I only started once I knew it was there). Before this, I thought I'd have to take a vehicle up to the San Gabriels/Angeles National Forest; it's nice having a longtime nemesis bird show up just a few blocks from where I live.

With Least Bittern and now Common Poorwill off the "nemesis" list, only my biggest L.A. County-nesting nemesis bird, Scott's Oriole, remains to be seen. (The fact I've searched for it mostly in Kern County, where my relatives live, notwithstanding.) Once I find it, there will be much rejoicing.

 

[ClarkWGriswold]

Long Billed Dowitcher

Yesterday @ Penclacwydd

Rich

 

[COLOMBIA Birding]

Congrats Diego! That darn nunbird eluded me despite spending plenty of time in habitat for it in Ecuador.

Patrick, for sure is a bird to miss EASILY!.. it perches on sub-canopy, silent, for hours!!... I made some 'prospective' playback every 30 minutes / 200m or so on the area where it was seen before; and it worked out!

I also missed it at Tandayapa in Ecuador and worked there for a full month back in 2003!

;-)

 

[Cheshire Birder]

Forgot to mention the Caspian Tern last week.

CB

 

[dwallace]

Black Grouse in County Durham last week.

Dave W

 

[Mysticete]

Never updated from last weekend, but got 4 more lifers on the Otago Peninsula

Northern Royal Albatross
Shy Albatross
Spotted Shag
and Stewart Island Shag

Hopefully get Yellow-eyed Penguin today

 

[Mysticete]

Great looks and photos of Yellow-eyed Penguin today, my (probably) last lifer of New Zealand for this trip.

 

[avesjohn]

Thanks to the AOU's decision to (finally) split the Sage Sparrow into 2 species, I got my first "armchair" lifer: Sagebrush Sparrow, which I saw in Utah in fall 2010 after seeing what is now classified as Bell's Sparrow here in California earlier that summer (and have seen several times since). Retroactively, my list goes up a notch to 451 species.

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

Thanks to the AOU's decision to (finally) split the Sage Sparrow into 2 species, I got my first "armchair" lifer: Sagebrush Sparrow, which I saw in Utah in fall 2010 after seeing what is now classified as Bell's Sparrow here in California earlier that summer (and have seen several times since). Retroactively, my list goes up a notch to 451 species.

Unfortunately, I lose a lifer with that update thanks to the lump of purple-crowned and green-crowned woodnymph.

 

[Dom F]

Last week Crested Shrike-Tit; Fuscous and Yellow-faced Honeyeaters

 

[Larry Lade]

Unfortunately, I lose a lifer with that update thanks to the lump of purple-crowned and green-crowned woodnymph.

The purple-crowned and green-crowned woodnymph are "lumped" as what?
The only woodnymphs I find in my "dated, 1991" Clements are:
Crowned, Fork-tailed, Long-tailed and Violet-capped.

Edited:
Looks like Purple-crowned & Green-crowned are lumped into Crowned Woodnymph now. And the "powers that be" have added Mexican Woodnymph, Thalurania ridgwayi.

 

[Larry Lade]

From Wikipedia I get this:
1. Crowned Woodnymph (Thalurania colombica)
Violet-crowned (or Purple-crowned) Woodnymph (Thalurania colombica colombica)
Green-crowned Woodnymph (Thalurania colombica fannyi)
Emerald-bellied Woodnymph (Thalurania colombica hypochlora)
2. Fork-tailed Woodnymph (Thalurania furcata)
3. Violet-capped Woodnymph (Thalurania glaucopis)
4. Mexican Woodnymph (Thalurania ridgwayi)
5. Long-tailed Woodnymph (Thalurania watertonii)

So is this pretty current?

 

[Swindon Addick]

Wood sandpiper at Slimbridge on 1 August. At the same time there was a spoonbill pretty much doing a song and dance routine right in front of the hide, so half the people in the hide were looking one way and half the other, all equally intently.

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

From Wikipedia I get this:
1. Crowned Woodnymph (Thalurania colombica)
Violet-crowned (or Purple-crowned) Woodnymph (Thalurania colombica colombica)
Green-crowned Woodnymph (Thalurania colombica fannyi)
Emerald-bellied Woodnymph (Thalurania colombica hypochlora)
2. Fork-tailed Woodnymph (Thalurania furcata)
3. Violet-capped Woodnymph (Thalurania glaucopis)
4. Mexican Woodnymph (Thalurania ridgwayi)
5. Long-tailed Woodnymph (Thalurania watertonii)

So is this pretty current?

As I understand it, yes.

 

[Andy Hurley]

I got a Black Stork on sunday, along with road rash and a broken telezoom:-C. I tripped over a bit of circular wire lying on the road as I was getting to a better position to photograph.

 

[Larry Lade]

Sorry about your recent equipment misfortunes Andy! Did you incur any physical injury in addition to your "road rash"?

* I am unfamiliar with "road rash", but I assume it may have something to do with skinned up hands and knees!

 

[andy hood]

My latest lifer Yellow Legged Gull this evening, Its also a patch tick for me too :t:

 

[Xenospiza]

Fawn-breasted Thrush, along with some 86 others ("Birdquest taxonomy") in the ever-so-wet southern Moluccas (bridges and roads being washed away on our second day on Buru did not help).
Unfortunately my most spectacular sighting was of an introduction (which I won't count) — a Southern Cassowarry on Seram.

 

[Andy Hurley]

Sorry about your recent equipment misfortunes Andy! Did you incur any physical injury in addition to your "road rash"?

* I am unfamiliar with "road rash", but I assume it may have something to do with skinned up hands and knees!

Thanks Larry, thats it, just cuts and bruises, no serious damage. just knees and outside of arms as I tried to shield the camera in the fall

 

[timsg80]

1415. Subalpine Warbler
A very flighty female near Uzes in France.