We should arrange for hurricanes more often. User yan snapped the following photo that I’m inclined to call an American Robin, the first for CONE Welder, this afternoon at 2:40:
Here’s a zoomed-in version of the shot:
Looks like a Robin to me. If we get the ID, that will be two new species for the game in one day. Not bad. 🙂
Update: We’ve now got the ID. Yay!
Check out these two shots that txbird got this afternoon around 3:30:
I’m leaning toward “bunting” on these, based on the general shape and pattern, as well as the fact that it’s perched on the same plant we’ve seen buntings feeding on a bunch over the last month or so. Especially in that second shot, I’m getting a subtle sense of some blue coloration — could it maybe be an immature male Indigo Bunting? We had a single beautiful shot of an adult male Indigo Bunting way back near the start of CONE Welder, on May 3, and then five more shots of a male on June 24. The range maps in Sibley, and the Welder checklist, both seem to suggest that it’s more of a spring and fall migrant than a summer resident, but I can’t think what else that bird might be.
I’m curious what others think.
New species today, with three shots, all by rafa:
Easy to mistake for an Inca Dove to a casual glance, but check out the dark markings on the wings. Congratulations, rafa!
I had overlooked this, but rafa alerted me to it in email. Check out this very interesting shot taken by breffni yesterday at 8:48 a.m.:
That’s a male Red-winged Blackbird in the middle of the shot, but what is that bird in the lower left? In the comments on the shot, idbirds asserts that it isn’t a Northern Mockingbird because of the length of the tail, and suggests it could be a juvenile Scissor-tailed Flycatcher.
Personally, I think either bird is possible. That tail doesn’t necessarily look longer than a mockingbird’s to me. The end of the tail also doesn’t look much like what Sibley shows for the juvenile Scissor-tailed (a bird I don’t know from personal experience, so I’m kind of dependent on field guides). The Sibley illustration seems to show that the tail of the juvenile flycatcher is distinctly notched; this shot seems to be right in the middle between the squared-off tail tip of a mockingbird and the notched tip of the flycatcher.
I’m curious what others think. Is this a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher? Or a Northern Mockingbird? I’m pretty sure it’s one or the other, but I’m really up in the air as to which one.
Thanks to breffni for getting this very interesting shot, and to rafa for calling my attention to it.
Here are some shots from today of what looks like a new bird for the game, at least if we can figure out what it is. These four shots were all by txbird; either no one else was on the system at the time, no one else was paying attention, or no one else had any shots left:
It’s clearly a flycatcher, and the overall color pattern says Myiarchus to me. If I were seeing this bird around my Southern California home, I wouldn’t even wonder; I’d call it an Ash-throated Flycatcher and be done with it (which I realize is a little bit bogus; rarities happen, after all). But in the south-central Texas environs of CONE Welder things are more complicated.
Sibley shows three species of Myiarchus flycatchers near CONE Welder in the summertime: Ash-throated, Brown-crested (which is a species of interest in the shifting-breeding-range study), and (maybe) Great Crested. The Welder checklist gives the following:
| S | S | F | W | |
| Ash-throated Flycatcher | R | U | ||
| Great Crested Flycatcher | O | O | ||
| Brown-crested Flycatcher | R | U |
The three species are quite similar-looking, and even though we’ve got a number of excellent shots here, I can’t say that I’m confident based on appearance which one of the three birds to call it. But overall I guess if I had to pick something I’d pick Ash-throated Flycatcher: It looks as much like that to me as it does either of the others, and the Sibley range map and the Welder checklist both agree that it’s unambiguously there in summer. But I really don’t know.
I’d definitely be interested in whether Dr. Glasscock has any opinion about this bird’s ID. And of course, it goes without saying that I’ll be watching closely to see if we can get any more shots of this very interesting bird. Thanks, txbird, for doing such a great job on the camera!
Here are a bunch of shots of a mystery bird from earlier today. I’m assuming these are all of the same bird, but I wasn’t on the camera at the time, and don’t really know that. The shots are by birdbrain, txbird, birdbrain, kryptonkay, birdbrain, and kryptonkay, respectively:
That hint of a light eyestripe running back from the eye in the first shot gives me pause; the first thing I thought when I saw that was, whoa, is that a female House Sparrow? But even with that, I think I’d vote for a female Painted Bunting. It’s the second shot that pushes me that way. The bird appears to be feeding on the same plant’s seeds that we’ve been seeing the Painted Bunting feeding on lately, and it’s going about it in what looks to me like a fairly bunting-like manner.
What do the rest of you think?
There have been a lot of tantalizingly mysterious birds showing up at CONE Welder over the last several days. Here, in chronological order, are a bunch that have me puzzled. (Thanks to robin54 for writing to bring my attention to these; she suggests we might want to see if we can get Dr. Selma Glasscock to weigh in on them, which sounds like a great idea to me.)
I’m going to number them for convenience in referring to them.
leacox took this shot on June 22 at 7:18 a.m.:
There’s a really interesting wine color going on there. It immediately made me think of finch, or maybe the Rose-breasted Grosbeak that was around the first week or so the camera was live, and hasn’t been seen since. But I assume the grosbeak hasn’t been back because they were migrating through, and are on the their breeding range now, well north of Texas, and really, that bird doesn’t say “finch” to me in any particularly strong way. What do you suppose it is? Is that color just a trick of the light? I wish we had a better shot.
Here are four shots of a bird from June 23 at 7:33 a.m. The first two shots was taken by txbird; the last two by rafa:
I’m leaning toward an immature Brown-headed Cowbird on these. I wasn’t familiar with what immature cowbirds looked like before this, but looking carefully at Sibley, I think this bird fits the bill pretty well.
These two shots were taken at 12:07 p.m. on June 23. The first is by txbird, the second by rafa:
I wish these shots were just a bit clearer, so I could get a better sense of the bird’s beak. The txbird shot looks like it shows a distinct wingbar, which has me thinking “oriole”. If I only had rafa’s shot to look at, though, I might be inclined to vote for a female Painted Bunting. But given that wingbar, I think I’d put my chips on oriole, maybe a female Orchard?
These shots were taken at 4:00 p.m. on June 23. The first is by vanilla, the second by tinyang:
This bird has an interesting posture. But I think maybe it’s a relatively familiar bird that just happens to be holding its body in a somewhat unusual position. I guess I’d go with a female Brown-headed Cowbird here.
txbird took this photo at 5:15 p.m. on June 23:
I’ve got nothing here. Could be another female Brown-headed Cowbird. Could be any of a bunch of other things, too. Really hard to say. Some shots just weren’t meant to be ID’d, I guess.
Update: Oops. There is no mystery bird #6. The bird I originally had here was a mislabeled shot that was taken during the same sequence posted above as mystery bird #2. I’ve moved it there now. Thanks to rafa for pointing out my mistake. One mystery solved! 🙂
So, what have we here? The following shots were taken around 2:07 p.m. yesterday (June 24), by txbird (the first photo and the last two) and by rafa (the second and third photos).
That’s a really interesting yellow color on the throat, especially in the first image by txbird. The plain wings pretty much rule out orioles for me, so what does that leave? Female Painted Bunting seems like a possibility, but what I can see of the beak seems too big. I could see this being a female tanager, either a Summer (which makes more sense per the Sibley range map) or a Scarlet (which Sibley shows in the area only during migration). The Welder checklist shows both of them as “uncommon” in the summer.
Or it could be an immature Brown-headed Cowbird, I suppose, with the yellow being more a video flare than a real color. I’m not seeing any of the pale edging on the back and wing plumage, though, that the immature cowbird is supposed to have. (See the mystery bird #8, below, for a nice example of that.)
Our last mystery shot was taken this afternoon (hm; yesterday afternoon, now, since it’s after midnight here), June 25 at 5:19 p.m., by txbird:
I’m leaning toward an immature Brown-headed Cowbird for this one.
All in all, a nice big batch of mysterious birds to argue about. 🙂 What do you all think?
tinyang and vanilla teamed up to snap five photos this morning of a bird that I’m scratching my head over. Check them out:
The shots are by tinyang, vanilla, vanilla, tinyang, and vanilla, respectively. According to txbird in chat, some users have suggested Varied Bunting, but I’m having a hard time reconciling those images with that bird, at least based on the field guide, which is the only place I’ve ever seen one. If I had to put money on something, I’d call it a drab male House Finch, but I’m not positive about it.
Varied Bunting doesn’t appear at all in the Welder checklist, and House Finch only as “rare”, and only in winter, so I’m really not sure what to think. Anyone else have any ideas?
Update: As discussed in the comments, I’m feeling more inclined to call this one a male House Finch. It’s a little unusual-looking, at least compared to the House Finches I’m used to seeing, but I’m pretty comfortable at this point saying that that’s what it is.
Later update: rafa alerted me to the fact that one of these images (the second from the bottom, by tinyang) has now been officially classified as a House Finch. Congratulations, tinyang!
Here’s a shot I’ve been wondering about for a few days now. vanilla took it at 9:00 a.m. on May 15:
She posted in an accompanying comment, “Bird on left zipped in and out before I could close in.” So, what might those birds be?
Based on the posture, and what you can see of the markings, I’m leaning toward the bird on the left being either a swallow or some kind of flycatcher. Looking through the checklist of Welder birds, there are several possibilities for each. To my mind, the question ends up turning largely on scale: If that bird on the left is relatively small, then I’d have to think it’s a swallow. If it’s somewhat larger, then I’d have to think it’s a flycatcher of some kind. And that means that the bird on the right ends up being an important clue. If we could identify it, we’d have a much better idea of the size of the bird on the left.
Unfortunately, I’m not getting any strong feeling at all from that bird on the right. Color-wise I could see it being an Inca Dove, but the tail (to the extent you can see it) seems too short, and the legs seem too long. I could also imagine it being a female Red-winged Blackbird or a female Brown-headed Cowbird; if I had to pick something, that might be where I’d go. In any of those cases, that would make the bird on the left swallow-sized rather than flycatcher-sized.
I’d like to find a shot of a known bird in that same tree so I could answer that scale question; maybe I’ll see if I can do that during the day tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m interested in hearing what you all think about this shot.
Update: Here’s a shot I took a few minutes ago. It is lower down in the same tree, and I believe it is at pretty much the same zoom setting, and hence the same scale, as the shot above. That’s a male Great-tailed Grackle, which I would think puts my two mystery birds at swallow-and-female-Brown-headed-Cowbird size, rather than at flycatcher-and-larger-mystery-bird size.
