Your Most Recent "Life" Bird (22 Viewers)

[Swindon Addick]

At last, after years of failures, near-misses and fleeting glimpses, today I finally got Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (#415 on the global lifelist).

I spent yet another afternoon at Middleton Lakes today, searching for LSW. All I got was a year-tick on lesser redpoll, plus an assurance that the woodpeckers had been seen the day before...

 

[punkskaphil]

I spent yet another afternoon at Middleton Lakes today, searching for LSW. All I got was a year-tick on lesser redpoll, plus an assurance that the woodpeckers had been seen the day before...

I've had one fly right past my face in Serbia, two fly away from me across treetops in the New Forest, I located a nest tree in Bushy Park but the birds were nowhere to be seen, and one was in the hotel car park in Finland as I was checking out (but had gone by the time we'd managed to get outside). I'd seen nothing better than a dark blur, and certainly nothing diagnostic.

The one I finally saw properly this Saturday was at Stocker's Lake in Rickmansworth. The good thing is that it seems to be staying on an inaccessible island on the lake, so birders can get close enough to observe with binoculars and scopes from a covered bank, but not close enough to disturb the birds.

 

[burnsomebridges]

As this is my first year recording sightings today I added greater spotted woodpecker (sure I saw one a few years ago) and goldcrest at Coate water near Swindon

 

[ClarkWGriswold]

Velvet Scoter - Moray Firth last Saturday.

Rich

 

[mjohnson0728]

Smooth-billed ani on March 13th, 2015. Georgetown Grand Cayman.

 

[Peter C.]

Smooth-billed ani on March 13th, 2015.

Not in Toronto, I hope!

 

[mjohnson0728]

Just updated the post. It was Georgetown, Grand Cayman.

 

[Peter C.]

Smooth-billed ani on March 13th, 2015. Georgetown Grand Cayman.

I've never been, so know nothing about Georgetown and its surroundings (i.e., what the nearby, accessible habitat is like) ... but, any luck with the warblers down there?

Peter

 

[mjohnson0728]

Hi PC,

We saw the Smooth-billed Ani at Governor Michael Gore Bird Sanctuary in Georgetown. There was a pond and large trees in the area. We saw lesser yellowlegs, La Sagra's Flycatcher, Loggerhead Kinfbird, Magnolia Warbler, Northern Parula, Bananaquit, Little Blue heron, Greater Antillean Grackle, West Indian Woodpecker,Yellow-faced Grassquit, Yellow Warbler, American Coot. In the town of Georgetown we saw Cape May Warbler, White-crowned Pigeon, Caribbean Elaenia and the same warblers we saw at the Sanctuary.

 

[Peter C.]

Thanks! Looks like a "good haul" for such a tiny little reserve...

 

[timsg80]

Bonaparte's Gull this morning at Radipole in Dorset.

 

[avesjohn]

Saw a female Painted Bunting this afternoon at a friend's house. What he thought was an aberrant goldfinch of some kind at his feeder turned out to be a local rarity. As often is the case with these birds, the possibility of it being an escapee is not out of the question (Painted Buntings are very popular in the Mexican cage bird trade), but we all want it to be a wild bird....

 

[Tero]

Common Gallinule. I had seen it years ago. Then I saw Moorhen in Finland. After that the Gallinule became its own species. Before that maybe 2 years ago, a motmot in Mexico. Our Mexican ruins guide promised me a plain chachalaca but it never showed. He seemed to know the bird individual.

 

[Peter C.]

Saw a female Painted Bunting this afternoon at a friend's house. What he thought was an aberrant goldfinch of some kind at his feeder turned out to be a local rarity. As often is the case with these birds, the possibility of it being an escapee is not out of the question (Painted Buntings are very popular in the Mexican cage bird trade), but we all want it to be a wild bird....

So true - they're a glorious bird...

 

[Larry Lade]

Painted Buntings are pretty common in southern Missouri (in season), but I have only seen them twice here in the northern part of the state. They are really a pretty bird!

 

[gthang]

Latest lifer for me, a European Goldfinch spotted at my feeders in southern New York State, United States. Yes, i'm well aware from my Sibley Field Guide and internet research that these are sometimes kept as pets in the exotic bird trade as well as having been unsuccessfully introduced in some areas of the world (Australia and New Zealand being a possible exception as there are many colonies in Australia). I truly hope this was a wild bird, as we've sighted it twice this week.

 

[Larry Lade]

I would think that it is probably a captive bird which has escaped.

 

[gthang]

I would think that it is probably a captive bird which has escaped.

That's what I'm thinking too, but still a beauty to see and photograph. I'm "ticking" it anyway, even though that's against "ticking" rules, lol.

https://instagram.com/p/1BRVXHH2hA

 

[etudiant]

European Goldfinches, escaped or otherwise, seem to be fairly frequent here in the US.
The last one in my patch, NYC Central Park, was 3-4 years ago, a nice male in full plumage.
Admittedly the bird was hanging around the feeders, so might have been another escapee, but he certainly was quite skittish.

 

[gthang]

European Goldfinches, escaped or otherwise, seem to be fairly frequent here in the US.
The last one in my patch, NYC Central Park, was 3-4 years ago, a nice male in full plumage.
Admittedly the bird was hanging around the feeders, so might have been another escapee, but he certainly was quite skittish.

My goldfinch was quite skittish as well, but that could be because it was recently captured and escaped, or part of a small group of wild birds descended from those released in the mid to late 1800s in the NYC/NNJ/LI area.