Bird Board
Bird Watching for Shut Ins
After carefully scouring the internet for news of postponements and cancellations, I found no references to any cancellation of the annual spring avian migration that is usually underway this time of year. Of course there are no parks to venture into, the ocean is off limits, and social distancing imposes even greater limits, especially for birding illiterates like me who can barely distinguish a warbler from a spoonbill, and need someone to tell me what species i am observing. Imagine my surprise then today while in my car at the local CVS (in full biohazard gear) i spied a whole flock of active birds in the trees overlooking the drive through lane. I saw yellows oranges and blues-but of course had no camera at hand.I raced home with my prescriptions and returned with my camera and got the images which appear as the first 7 photos on my flicker photostream https://www.flickr.com/photos/joelnrosenthal/?
In no particular order, my guesses at the identifications are prairie warbler? spot breasted oriole(even i could figure this one out), female indigo bunting? and a ubiquitous red bellied woodpecker. Correct ids welcomed...
Comments
Joel, I believe your "indigo bunting" is actually a female House Sparrow. Your other IDs are spot-on.
par for the course--tho the bird seemed larger than a sparrow, and i had seen some blue in the tree earlier--figured this might be the female accompanying a male. Need to work on my photoshop technique....
The indigo/house sparrow bird has blurry streaks on breast. Might be a female-type Brown-headed Cowbird, also since you said it was larger.
the only part of my identification that i can be sure of is that it was a bird..I always defer to those with greater experience, keener eyes and knowledge of things with feathers. There were some sparrows around when i took the photos, but I'd have guessed this bird was one and a half to twice the size of them. That it might have been a sparrow never crossed my mind when i saw it, but whatever it was, it was the least colorful of my targets that afternoon.
Stephen may be right. My Peterson guide illustrates an immature Brown-headed Cowbird on the House Sparrow page for comparison. The cowbird is illustrated with blurry breast streaks while the female sparrow is not. On the other hand, the Peterson cowbird is illustrated with gray legs and bill, while on Joel's bird, these appear brownish. Definitely confusing.
Could it have been a red breasted grosbeak female? We had one at home in Kendall today.
Could it have been a red breasted grosbeak female? We had one at home in Kendall today. Or a blue grosbeak?
Sorry, I guess not the right beak for a grosbeak.
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