GAME: name that bird!

[janzin]

well I'll wait to hear the verdict from @inyathi but I do think I'm right This is a bird of Guyana and I remembered that @inyathidid visit there. Pale bill, dark face, red crown, all looks good for Blood-colored.

 

[Galana]

5 hours ago, janzin said:

but I do think I'm right

I know you are but let's do it by the book.

FWIW my sequence of coming up with that bird, which I had never even heard of, was a fluke. I was browsing Woodpeckers and had typed the bit above "looking to Latin America and India etc.," when I stopped to think are there any woodpeckers in Australia? So I asked Mr Google that and oddly a photo came up that looked like our bird. It was labelled 'Bloody coloured Woodpecker, Surinam.'  Gotcha says I but then blew it by thinking Surinam was in Indonesia and wasted precious time checking Indonesian Woodpeckers as  I knew @inyathiwanders those parts

Well it was not there was it? (Neither was he! )

And by the time my normally good geography had kicked in that Surinam was one of  "The Guyana's" where this darn bird was an endemic as Mr Google confirmed I was 17 minutes too late and past 1 AM anyway.

I let my unposted reply stand and just added my by then out of time final sentences.

No regrets. It was turning into a ping pong match and somewhat embarrassing.

It's time the gal had a go anyway.

[inyathi]

Well that was another quick answer, yes it is blood-coloured woodpecker, I thought @janzin that you would likely be the one to get it, with it being a South American species, over to you

[janzin]

Well I was pretty sure right away it was a South American bird, as I know @inyathiis one of the few here who has done quite a bit of traveling and birding there.  I actually didn't use google or a field guide but a "secret website" I know (not really secret at all---its the website of a birding guide I know--he's photographed birds all over South America and it's organized taxonomically)--so I just went to woodpeckers and started scrolling through. There were a few candidates and I went through those more carefully looking at field marks and then going to the field guides and google to get more views of the candidate species.  

 

I'll be back with the next one soon...

 

[janzin]

okay try this one...

 

 

 

Edited October 20, 2020 by janzin

[offshorebirder]

@janzin - it looks like one of the Zonotrichia sparrows.  Immature White-crowned Sparrow?    I think it looks better for that than an immature Golden-crowned Sparrow.

[janzin]

So when I posted that photo I right away said to myself, " @offshorebirder is going to get it, so I hope he doesn't see it right away."  I figured only an American birder--and an expert one at that--would get it quickly and he fits that bill Indeed it is an immature White-crowned Sparrow. 

 

Here is the same bird when he hopped around.

 

 

I guess I need to stay away from North American species when Nate is playing!

 

Over to you @offshorebirder

 

 

 

[Galana]

1 hour ago, janzin said:

I guess I need to stay away from North American species when Nate is playing!

Not really. You folks have to suffer Eurobirds etc., so the Goose and Gander sauce comes to mind.

I had the bird 'late last night' as one of the Spizellas but could not make a fit. And then bed called, as it does. I would have got there today.

Good call.

[offshorebirder]

Sorry for the delay - I have been away from my photo archive the past couple of days.   When I answered @janzin's entry, I thought I could dig up a decent entry on my laptop but was mistaken.

 

Anyway - this one is not difficult but I figure it is time for a tubenose in this game:

 

[Soukous]

I'm not much good with birds on the other side of the Atlantic, but let's try Cory's Shearwater

[Galana]

2 hours ago, Soukous said:

but let's try Cory's Shearwater

Good call but just in case we need an each way bet I will stay loyal to my home grown native Puffinus puffinus which, unlike its eponymous feline namesake does have a tail.

[offshorebirder]

Sorry @Soukous it is not a Cory's Shearwater.    But you are close indeed.

 

And @Galana I am afraid it is not a Manx Shearwater either.   

 

[janzin]

Scopoli's Shearwater?  Although not all sources consider that a separate species.

 

[offshorebirder]

You got it @janzin.    To paraphrase Steve Howell:  any sources not considering Scopoli's a distinct species are rubbish.   

 

Over to you.

 

[janzin]

4 hours ago, offshorebirder said:

You got it @janzin.    To paraphrase Steve Howell:  any sources not considering Scopoli's a distinct species are rubbish.   

 

Over to you.

 

well, I sort of feel it should go to @Soukoussince the AOU has not officially split it. From what I can see, only the IOC accepts the split.   However, I'll take the win since @Soukous, being across the pond, probably should be going by IOC rules

[Soukous]

12 hours ago, offshorebirder said:

Sorry @Soukous it is not a Cory's Shearwater.    But you are close indeed.

 

No problem. I would have been amazed if I had been first over the line

[Soukous]

4 hours ago, janzin said:

well, I sort of feel it should go to @Soukoussince the AOU has not officially split it. From what I can see, only the IOC accepts the split.   However, I'll take the win since @Soukous, being across the pond, probably should be going by IOC rules

 

Rules? 

AOU? 

IOC? what has this got to do with the International Olympic Committee?

[Galana]

2 hours ago, Soukous said:

what has this got to do with the International Olympic Committee?

Did you not hear? Twitching is now an official Olympic Sport.

[offshorebirder]

With all due respect @janzin - I am not sure the AOU has much bearing on the question. 

 

The AOU is notorious for dragging its feet and ignoring solid publications in peer-reviewed journals for years before admitting the truth, in comparison to other ornithological authorities (the BOU has treated Scopoli's as a monotypic species since 2012, as have other European authorities).  And since neither Scopoli's nor Cory's Shearwaters breed in the Americas or their waters, I don't see why the hidebound AOU checklist should take precedence over publications by more enlightened organizations and field guide uber-experts like Steve Howell, Magnus Robb & Killian Mullarney, etc.   

 

* Plenty of published papers and books also state Scopoli's is a distinct species.  This blurb mentions one published in the Ibis that is particularly authoritative and includes results of genetic sequencing: https://www.acap.aq/news/news-archive/57-2012-news-archive/1157-scopolis-shearwater-of-the-mediterranean-is-now-considered-to-be-a-full-species

 

This is the paper itself: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2012.01273.x/pdf

 

There isn't any doubt among real seabird experts that Scopoli's Sheawater and Cape Verde Shearwater are distinct species from Cory's Shearwater.   It just takes time for dinosaurs like the AOU to catch up to reality and with the rest of the world - particularly regarding seabirds.    The irksome AOU still hasn't even split Band-rumped Storm-Petrel for crying out loud!   

 

Here are some more references:

 

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carles_Carboneras/publication/271271689_Update_on_the_population_status_and_distribution_of_Mediterranean_shearwaters/links/54c3dfd30cf256ed5a92a067/Update-on-the-population-status-and-distribution-of-Mediterranean-shearwaters.pdf

 

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pierre_Yesou/publication/299382332_Ecology_and_Conservation_of_Mediterranean_seabirds_and_other_bird_species_under_the_Barcelona_Convention/links/56f2be4408aed6f9ebb64bbb.pdf

 

More can be found via Google Scholar and Birdlife's species page (reference tab): http://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/scopolis-shearwater-calonectris-diomedea/refs

Edited October 25, 2020 by offshorebirder

[offshorebirder]

Apparently Safaritalk glitched and duplicated a post with corrections - instead of letting me edit the post like usual.

[janzin]

thanks @offshorebirderthat's probably more than most want to know about Shearwaters I will stick with the AOU/Clements as that is what I use for my listing software and I believe eBird goes by that as well.

 

Anyway, here's my next offering.

 

 

 

 

[Galana]

Oh Janet, @janzinwhat have you done? Introducing the C bird.

I think I prefer the treatise on Shearwaters.

In the hope that you have photoed something obscure and the game can run on can I eliminate our friendly Zitter as a start?

[janzin]

@Galananow would I be so foolish/tricky as to post a common Zitting?   Sorry, nope!

 

 

[Galana]

Sometimes Double bluff works.

[Galana]

I am going to struggle as my only "All Africa" Field guide has the most awful illustrations of Cisticolas so I am left with SASOL for Southern Africa and Fanshawe's for East.

Fortunately Fanshawes has most of the suspects on one page. I am homing in on the crown being very 'black'.

Let's eliminate another. Pectoral Patch.