GAME: name that bird!

[inyathi]

@Galana Well the bird in your first shot clearly has a red eye and only the female of the Rwenzori has a red eye, the male in your next shot has I would say an orange eye, there are a few other batis species illustrated with red eyes in Birds of Africa South of the Sahara, but most species have yellow eyes, Stevenson and Fanshawe doesn't illustrate the female Rwenzori, so it would have been easy to get thrown by the eye colour. My first thought when I saw it, was it is a batis, the absence of any sign of a wattle around the eye, ruled out wattle-eyes. It was the dark head, the absence of a supercilium and the eye that gave it away. 

 

Have ago at this, it shouldn't be too hard. 

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by inyathi

[Galana]

11 hours ago, inyathi said:

it would have been easy to get thrown by the eye colour.

How very true. There were are sequence of four shots taken over 2mins 30secs. My 2nd was '1st', my 1st was the 2nd if you understand what I mean.

3 & 4 are here (in the interest of scientific research)

My money is on them all being the same bird given the time scale. Of course we could have had a pair as they are tough little buggers to get to sit still.. (And even tougher for me to get them in the viewfinder when they do!!)

 

12 hours ago, inyathi said:

Have ago at this, it shouldn't be too hard. 

Really?

[Galana]

13 hours ago, inyathi said:

it shouldn't be too hard. 

I think the least you could have  done is got that darn bird to clean its feet and bill.  I thought 'black' until I noted some red showing through.

I have wavered from Cape Spurfowl (imm ) to Swainson's via Natal and Nahan.

Nothing to bring on a surge of excitement.

[Galana]

Well that was a blind alley indeed.

Woodhen or Weka I think from NZ.

[inyathi]

@Galana I was going to be rude and suggest that it is not the bird that needs cleaning and that perhaps you could make use of a lens cloth , but you quickly realised your mistake and demonstrated that as I said, it shouldn't be too hard, my bird is a Stewart Island Weka (Gallirallus australis scotti) photographed on Ulva Island, a tiny bird sanctuary off Stewart Island, I didn't ask for the specific subspecies, so Weka is the correct answer I wanted. The Weka is a flightless rail endemic to New Zealand, like so many of New Zealand's birds the population has suffered markedly due to a combination of habitat loss and introduced predators, predator free islands like Ulva are important for their survival, although being omnivores, they are themselves predators and will take lizards and the eggs and young of other ground nesting birds, so they can't be introduced to some of the smaller off-shore islands, that have been turned into sanctuaries for other endangered species.  They are very curious and confiding birds, not afraid of people, Ulva Island is a short distance by water taxi from Oban the main town on Stewart Island, Wekas are still reasonably common on Stewart Island itself, but perhaps more easily seen on Ulva, some of the bird species introduced to Ulva like South Island Saddleback and Yellowhead are not found on Stewart, and other species are more common on Ulva. The island makes for a great daytrip or half daytrip, I walked around the island birding on my own, but you can do guided tours like in this video, which illustrates how confiding wekas are.

 

 

 

Back to you.

 

Edited January 12, 2021 by inyathi

[Galana]

Thanks. My thought process was convoluted. I went into "AutoFrancolin" mode where leg and bill colour play a large part in Field clues. Hence my comment on clean legs and bill as they were neither black not red. Then came a 'eureka' moment when my hard stare at the bill to get to grips with the colour revealed it was not a Francolin bill but possibly a crake or rail. The brown plumage threw me a little til I remembered the flightless rails down under and "job done!" Or so I thought and hoped.

Back with another soon.

[Galana]

Here we go.

Time for an LB J.

 

[inyathi]

@GalanaSince no one has gone for this, I thought it was time to make a guess, to show this game hasn't been forgotten, I'm not at all confident that this is correct, but I think I am probably in the right region of the world, is it a Sind Sparrow (Passer pyrrhonotus)?

[Galana]

Gosh. There is life out there after all. I was thinking I had locked down too hard! Where is everybody?

Sorry @inyathiit is not a Sind Sparrow (I had to look that one up.)

This is one that actually does what it says in the book.

[inyathi]

@Galana

 

I thought that was likely wrong, but my initial thought had been, that it might be a female rosefinch, but after looking at the different species, I changed my mind and binned that idea, and looked at other options but clearly not the right one.

 

I will now suggest the humble Rock Sparrow (Petronia petronia)

[Galana]

5 hours ago, inyathi said:

I will now suggest the humble Rock Sparrow (Petronia petronia)

Sorry. Not the humble or any other Petronia.

Good to see somebody trying. I would have thought this would have been right up somebody's street. How about you @Peter Connan?

 

[Soukous]

It looks very much like a female House Sparrow to me. 

[Galana]

3 hours ago, Soukous said:

It looks very much like a female House Sparrow to me. 

It does but it's not. Try not to ruffle the birds feathers as it may sue.

Good to see another player returning.

[Soukous]

I should be used to the fact that your replies are as cryptic as the Daily Telegraph crossword. Which I also rarely succeed with.

 

I'm now leaning towards Bishops & Queleas, although the bill does not look chunky enough, but as the illustrations from one book to the next barely resemble each other I am not really much closed to an answer. 

[pedro maia]

41 minutes ago, Soukous said:

I should be used to the fact that your replies are as cryptic as the Daily Telegraph crossword. Which I also rarely succeed with.

 

I'm now leaning towards Bishops & Queleas, although the bill does not look chunky enough, but as the illustrations from one book to the next barely resemble each other I am not really much closed to an answer. 

 

I don´t read the Daily Telegraph but to say that @Galana´s replies are cryptic may be an understatement, just look where we are in the other game...

[mvecht]

@Galana How about Lark-like Bunting?

[Galana]

Now perhaps the clue was not so cryptic after all. Or Michael just knew the answer.

It is indeed a Lark-like Bunting. Take the initials LLB and you have a Bachelor of Law although perhaps our non British players would not know that.

'Up your street' was for @Peter Connanas the bird is almost a SW African Endemic. This particular specimen frequented my tent at Entendeka Lodge along with about 50 of his relatives.. I would have thought the red/brown primaries would have done enough.

I love the description in Sinclair. "A rather nondescript superficially lark-like bunting". Well it bloody would be with a name like that, hence my comment

On 1/18/2021 at 11:17 PM, Galana said:

This is one that actually does what it says in the book.

What more can a man do?

All yours @mvecht

[mvecht]

@Galana as a non native Englisk speaker the LLB clue went over my head but bringing Peter Connan into the game led me in the right direction

Have a go at this one.

Not the best picture but it should still be possible to work it out.

[inyathi]

@GalanaI seriously led myself astray there, thinking we were likely back up in the high Himalayas, a bit silly not to think the habitat could indicate desert and then look at Namibia, since I've posted a few Namibian birds myself, still one of my primary reasons for just finding an answer to post, even if it was wrong, was to wake this game up again and that I did achieve. 

 

Well done @mvechtI'd realised my mistake and started to look at Africa but hadn't got as far considering lark like bunting, beyond knowing the family, I haven't started started on yours yet, I'll wait and see who else wants to have a go, before I offer an answer.    

[Galana]

1 hour ago, inyathi said:

I'll wait and see who else wants to have a go, before I offer an answer.    

I would do that too but on past showing the thing just stutters along.

So my initial suggestion is  a juv Rufous-bellied Heron.

[mvecht]

@GalanaI had hoped that I could confuse some people with the fairly unusual position of the bird high up in a naked tree.

The picture was taken at the airstrip of the Kwara Lodge in Botswana way back in 2004 using a Canon 10D. 

I agree that it is a juvenile Rufous-bellied Heron. Over to you again

[ElenaH]

I am not going to compete ;-) actually I am not a real birder but a newcomer. I just noticed that here are playing real good birders and perhaps you can help me to identify those two birds? They are coming to our garden. 

I tried to identify but cannot differ between Accipiter gentilis or Northern Goshawk and Accipiter nisus or Eurasian Sparrowhawk. Which one (or two) are those? @michael-ibkmentioned that the second and third photo could be a female of Accipiter nisus. Then on the first photo is a male? 

Or is it Northern Goshawk on the first and third photos?

Please, help! 

 

Thank you in advance!

 

 

 

 

[inyathi]

@ElenaH Both are Eurasian Sparrowhawks, and you are right the first one is the male, and the other the female. The northern goshawk is a much bigger more powerful bird than the sparrowhawk, they also tend to be confined to large areas of woodland/forest, so unless your garden is right next to a substantial area of forest, it is very unlikely that you would see a goshawk in your garden, I'm certainly not aware of any records from gardens here in the UK, although they are still rare, so they're not often seen anyway.    

[Galana]

I agree with @inyathiAll are Sparrowhawks the small colourful male as #1 and the other two females.

A female Goshawk is the size of a Buzzard so as they say "You will know it when you see it."

 

You say they are coming to your garden. Do you have feeders for small birds? The hawks will think there is a new branch of McDonalds just for them.

[Galana]

Well as the LBJ, LLB took so long why not a Green and Yellow UFO?