Your silliest/most entertaining/unlikely birding accomplishments (1 Viewer)

[TicoTyler]

Reminds me of an encounter I had. I was birding with a group on the boardwalk at Sacha Lodge in Ecuador. We briefly heard an Undulated Tinamou in the thick brush near the boardwalk but try as we might, we were unable to see it. We waited quite awhile but it never showed itself. As we were ready to move on I thought it would be a good idea to hang back and take care of some business behind a thick tree next to the boardwalk. As I was standing there doing my business, the Undulated Tinamou stepped out, giving close, fantastic views, even without my being able to use my binoculars. Given my situation, I couldn’t really call out to the group, and by the time I was done, the bird was gone. I was the only one to have seen the elusive tinamou.

Dave

Costa Rica has 5 tinamous. Normally you hear them before you see them. In some weird twist of fate, 3 of the 5 (Great, Slaty-breasted, and Highland) as lifers I saw before I heard.

 

[TicoTyler]

I have still never seen one. I think I’ve heard it 30+ times and put in concerted effort a dozen times or so, including at Tapanti. Certainly, along with Hooded and Tawny-breasted Tinamous, my worst streak in terms of not seeing a bird that I am able to find. Tiny Hawk and Slaty-backed Forest-Falcon, on the other hand, I doubt actually exist at this point.

I'm up to 689 in Costa Rica and I'm missing both. Recently the Forest-Falcon was seen at a small restaurant on the main road after it collided with a window. Rested up for a bit and took off back into the forest.

 

[jcpjung]

eBird Police
I had studied the "Birds of Europe" before our trip to Ireland, and was excited to get a closer look at the nesting site of the bank swallows flying in and out of the many holes in the sand bank on Ireland's west coast. As we approached, I spotted a swallow on the ground, picked it up, and asked my wife to take a photo. This bird had the breast band that distinguishes it from other swallows, but flew out of my hand before my wife pulled out her camera. Of course I included the bank swallow on the eBird checklist for that location and day, but the eBird police insisted several days later that the bird I had in my hand could not have been a bank swallow.

 

[Farnboro John]

eBird Police
I had studied the "Birds of Europe" before our trip to Ireland, and was excited to get a closer look at the nesting site of the bank swallows flying in and out of the many holes in the sand bank on Ireland's west coast. As we approached, I spotted a swallow on the ground, picked it up, and asked my wife to take a photo. This bird had the breast band that distinguishes it from other swallows, but flew out of my hand before my wife pulled out her camera. Of course I included the bank swallow on the eBird checklist for that location and day, but the eBird police insisted several days later that the bird I had in my hand could not have been a bank swallow.

Probably because it was a Sand Martin, you're not in Kansas any more Toto! (It's the same thing.)

John

 

[jurek]

I had a Collared Forest-Falcon pointed to me by a non-birder.

There seems to be a stakeout for the Collared Forest-Falcon in Mexico now. One was sitting at the entrance to the bat cave Cueva de los Murcilegos near Calakmul, Campeche for an hour, and then trashing after bats few meters above our heads. Local not-really-official guides who take visitors to the cave recognize this species and insist it is there every evening.

There were also a Bat Falcon, a Roadside Hawk and a Keel-billed Toucan, but the most successful bat catchers were the ungainly but persistent Brown Jays. Overall, a spectacle worth of a high-profile BBC production.

 

[lgonz1008]

I had a Collared Forest-Falcon pointed to me by a non-birder.

There seems to be a stakeout for the Collared Forest-Falcon in Mexico now. One was sitting at the entrance to the bat cave Cueva de los Murcilegos near Calakmul, Campeche for an hour, and then trashing after bats few meters above our heads. Local not-really-official guides who take visitors to the cave recognize this species and insist it is there every evening.

There were also a Bat Falcon, a Roadside Hawk and a Keel-billed Toucan, but the most successful bat catchers were the ungainly but persistent Brown Jays. Overall, a spectacle worth of a high-profile BBC production.

Sounds like the clips online of Bat Hawk, Hornbills and Hawk-Eagles in Borneo. Cool to see how these behaviors can be seen in different parts of the world with species of similar niches in the ecosystem.

 

[cajanuma]

I’m talking about things like getting a mega vagrant while going to the bathroom

It's now a time-honored tradition on Linosa that we find some of the very best birds when we've given up on birding and are heading out for a swim. Top birds found this way include Blyth's and American Pipits (both firsts for Italy), and Desert Whetear on the very rocks we were planning to dive from. And I and a few others were swimming the moment the first Pallas's Bunting for Italy was found, and we had to be fished out of the water (I reciprocated the favor with the Blyth's Pipit, when a couple of birders were already swimming somewhere else as it was found).

 

[jurek]

Sounds like the clips online of Bat Hawk, Hornbills and Hawk-Eagles in Borneo. Cool to see how these behaviors can be seen in different parts of the world with species of similar niches in the ecosystem.

I saw bat caves in Borneo but Mexico was more entertaining. The toucans were more colorful and the Brown Jays were more interesting. They are weak flyers compared to the bats, but seem to know that the bat echolocation does not work backwards and flew into the stream of bats from behind.

 

[pbjosh]

It's now a time-honored tradition on Linosa that we find some of the very best birds when we've given up on birding and are heading out for a swim. Top birds found this way include Blyth's and American Pipits (both firsts for Italy), and Desert Whetear on the very rocks we were planning to dive from. And I and a few others were swimming the moment the first Pallas's Bunting for Italy was found, and we had to be fished out of the water (I reciprocated the favor with the Blyth's Pipit, when a couple of birders were already swimming somewhere else as it was found).

I have only one lifer while using the (in situ) facilities, but it's a story best not told in too much detail. It involves a (thankfully) deserted 4WD track in Peru, what is now called Oxapampa Antpitta, a bit of GI distress, and using the bins from a very low squat while doing something very unsavory. One of the better days to have been birding solo.

 

[Oregonian]

We joined Alan Poole at dinner last month at the Las Cruces Biological Station in eastern Costa Rica. His lovely book, Quetzals, Icons of the Cloud Forest, came out last October. The book covers different quetzals, besides the Resplendent Quetzal. Alan said "No one ever sees a Pavonine Quetzal". What an opening! I raised my hand and said wait a minute, I have! I opened my phone and showed off my eBird checklist from Vaupés, Colombia, that had photos and a recording.

https://ebird.org/checklist/S55238610

 

[pbjosh]

Alan said "No one ever sees a Pavonine Quetzal".

In my experience it is the hardest Quetzal to see. I hav e probably heard it 10-15 times and seen it 3-4? It did take a LONG time (years) to get good views. There is luck involved of course but it’s not an bird you can go tick on any given day, that’s for sure.

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

In my experience it is the hardest Quetzal to see. I hav e probably heard it 10-15 times and seen it 3-4? It did take a LONG time (years) to get good views. There is luck involved of course but it’s not an bird you can go tick on any given day, that’s for sure.

Strangely enough, the first Quetzal I saw - a pair in Tambopata.

 

[Xenospiza]

We joined Alan Poole at dinner last month at the Las Cruces Biological Station in eastern Costa Rica. His lovely book, Quetzals, Icons of the Cloud Forest, came out last October. The book covers different quetzals, besides the Resplendent Quetzal. Alan said "No one ever sees a Pavonine Quetzal". What an opening! I raised my hand and said wait a minute, I have! I opened my phone and showed off my eBird checklist from Vaupés, Colombia, that had photos and a recording.

https://ebird.org/checklist/S55238610

Mitú (Santa Cruz Road)? That's where I saw my only one, but I have no photos...

 

[Oregonian]

Mitú (Santa Cruz Road)? That's where I saw my only one, but I have no photos...

Yes, Mitú, I'd have to look again at the site.

 

[Paul Chapman]

September 2023 at Manu Birding Lodge for me. Not edited the pics yet so still back of camera....

All the best

Paul

 

[cajanuma]

Here's one that's quite unlikely: a friend of mine has seen exactly two Western Sandpipers his entire life, yet has that species in four different countries.

We watched one together in Jan 2017 on a sandbank in the Putumayo river that marks the boundary between Colombia and Peru (AFAIK, the only record of Western Sandpiper in the Amazon basin). Then in Sept 2021, amazingly, one showed up in Switzerland just 45 minutes from where my friend lives, on the Italian side of the border, and he successfully twitched it. Even more amazingly, that same individual was then relocated a couple of weeks later a few dozen km to the south, near Milan in Italy, and we went to see it together.

 

[Jared Del Rosso]

Not at the same level of rarity as many of these stories, but I encountered an adult male Summer Tanager this past autumn in the suburbs of Denver...while slowly trying to walk off a back injury, meandering up my neighborhood road in sandals and without binoculars, in the t-shirt and shorts I woke up in.

I'm also particularly enthralled by unexpected encounters with birds that happen while I'm not birding. The eBird high count of Turkey Vultures for the county I live in are the 70 or so I counted while waiting for a bus. My personal high count of Greater White-fronted Geese came while I walked past one of the least bird-friendly parks you can imagine after dropping my car off for an oil change. A three-year-old child (inadvertently) chased them off...

 

[Andy Adcock]

Not sure if I've told this story before?

I was on the beach in Kuta, Bali, I'd just come to the end of a fairly arduous, three month trip, mainly overland, which had started in Malaysia. Whilst in Bali, getting some R+R, I would lay on the beach with my 'bins', checking out the occasional flocks of Frigatebirds that fly over as I hadn't seen Greater, still haven't.

Anyway, on this particular day, the beach was filthy with what was probably millions, of dead fish, killed, I was told, by a toxic algae bloom. As I'm looking out to sea, I picked up and odd looking brown, bird, flying straight, towards me which at first I thought was probably going to be a wader. As it got closer, I saw that it was a Bulwer's Petrel! I think it had ben lured inland by the stench of all the dead fish and for the next five minutes, I was treated to the surreal sight of this bird as it flew along the tideline, two feet above the water, literally, weaving in and out between the people who were paddling, knee deep in the surf and at one point, it was set against a large airliner, coming in to land, in the near distance, behind it.

 

[Georgebirds]

I saw my first Cattle Egret (in the UK, when they were still extremely rare) while on a bolting horse!
Amidst trying in vain to stop the headlong gallop, caught sight of something white moving along parallel with us out of the corner of my eye, glanced over, and for a very brief moment my train of thought was something like 'egret...YELLOW bill...dirty beige bits on it...that's a cattle egret' before switching attention back to avoiding disaster (horse was fine, we slowed down eventually when she got distracted by swerving a bike on the ground and I was able to steer her into a hedge)

 

[Trinovid]

Amidst trying in vain to stop the headlong gallop, caught sight of something white moving along parallel with us out of the corner of my eye, glanced over, and for a very brief moment my train of thought was something like 'egret...YELLOW bill...dirty beige bits on it...that's a cattle egret' before switching attention back to avoiding disaster...and I was able to steer her into a hedge

Great post and I reread this portion a half dozen times already!