GAME: name that bird!

[janzin]

@inyathi I don't want to mislead you, you were right about South America. No need to go further north

 

 

[inyathi]

@janzin Thanks, no worries, I'm slightly busy with something else at the minute, I didn't want to distract myself and get too stuck in, so I thought it was worth adding a few pointers, to make a bit easier for others, I'm happy to take my time over it, because I don't mind if someone else jumps in.   

[janzin]

Okay I guess its time for a clue. No one has even attempted a guess, and I thought it would be easy once we narrowed it down to South America. In fact, this bird is fairly common and found in both northern South America and most of Central America as well.

 

Its a female which should be obvious although I guess male birds sometimes sit on the next.

 

Concentrate on the bill (for general genus) and the tail.

 

 

 

[inyathi]

@janzin

 

I'll take a punt and say black-crowned or western slaty antshrike, (Thamnophilus atrinucha) I may not be right, but I thought it was something like an antshrike when I first saw it.

[janzin]

@inyathi you're just too good! Yes, female Black-crowned Antshrike, taken in Colombia.

 

Your turn...

 

[inyathi]

@janzin

 

I thought that was a good guess. but I wasn't sure it was definitely right. The size and shape of the bill was what first made me think it must be a South American bird and something like an antshrike, or ant something, I know the birds of Africa and Eurasia well enough, that I can’t think of any birds from either, off the top of my head that have quite such a noticeably big bill. I have to say though, I don’t find South American birds easy just because there are so many of them and the illustrations in the Birds of Northern South America, really aren’t great, I decided to try the Birds of Peru just because the illustrations are so much better, but that didn’t help much as your antshrike isn’t in it, I should have looked at the Birds of Ecuador. It was the tail that suggested I was on the right track, but really it was your last clue that nailed it for me, as soon as I looked at the distribution map online, I was confident I had the right bird.   

 

This might be quite a tough one, cast an eye over this bird.

 

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by inyathi

[Peter Connan]

A Racing Chesnut-vented Titbabbler?

[inyathi]

@Peter Connan I can see a resemblance, so not a bad guess, but no

 

To make it very a bit easier I'll say that this is a bird from a different continent, also I don't know if this will help, but I offered a very subtle clue in my post, as to what to look at, I've just edited it to change the wording, but only very slightly, I will offer some more clues later, if no one takes a guess.

Edited May 7, 2020 by inyathi

[Soukous]

so we need to check the eye @inyathi

without knowing the Continent I'm lost 

[inyathi]

@Soukous  Well you should know from that last comment, that it’s not Africa and obviously you can rule out Antarctica and I would have thought you should have ruled out Europe, so that only leaves four continents  I could also say that you should have more chance with this one, than you would have had with @janzin's last bird and you should be able to discern the family.

 

But I will be a bit kinder than that, since I think this is a tough one, and say that when you sucked me back into this game, I didn’t want to post photos from my most recent trip, at that moment, as I wanted to put most of them in my report. I didn’t want to put photos in to my report unlabelled or hold up my report, while I waited for someone to post the right answer in this thread, so I decided not to post any photos from there, until I discovered that when choosing the photos for my report, I had overlooked one, so it got left out of the report.

 

When sufficient time has past, I may well post shots that were in that report, or of course I may pick shots from somewhere else entirely.

Edited May 8, 2020 by inyathi

[Soukous]

So @inyathi that implies it is Vietnam. 

[inyathi]

@Soukous that's where the photo was taken, but it's not an endemic, so it does occur in other countries.

[Soukous]

Mountain Bulbul ??

[inyathi]

@Soukous right tribe  wrong member.

Edited May 8, 2020 by inyathi

[Soukous]

Grey -eyed Bulbul

[inyathi]

@Soukous Yes over to you.

 

 

[Soukous]

try this one

 

[inyathi]

@Soukous

 

It looks like you’ve followed a strategy I’ve considered before, of posting a shot that you would otherwise have binned, this is a bit of a guess, since I can’t find any photos of the bird from the same angle, but since no one else has had a go, I’ll ask is it a ringed plover?

 

At least if I’m wrong, I might prompt someone else to take a guess.

[Soukous]

As you anticipated @inyathi you are incorrect.

I would have binned the shot but it was the only shot I got last year of this species. There is a big clue there.

[inyathi]

@Soukous Well, I was quite confident when I wrote that, that I was completely wrong, I had a nagging feeling that the shape of the bird wasn't right for a plover, and the white line on the back of the head wasn't in quite the right place, but I couldn't think of anything else, partly because I assumed it was sitting on rock, that and the background suggested to me it was somewhere on the coast and therefore a seabird of sorts or maybe a wader, I knew that if I could see it from the other side I'd know exactly what it was, and probably kick myself. After I posted my answer, a little bell in the back of my head, was telling me that I hadn't looked at pratincoles, however, given your clue, I thought, you're basically telling me to look up your Big Year for 2019, so I did that and that obviously found me the exact bird, so I can say for certain, that this is what it is.  

 

 

Rock pratincole, Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda

 

If you go to MFNP and do the boat trip up the Nile to Murchison Falls, the rocks next to where boat stops to view the Falls, near to where people are dropped off for the walk up to the top of the Falls, is I think probably the most reliable place anywhere to see rock pratincoles, there's always a pair there and they're easy to see.   

 

How about this bird, any ideas?

 

 

 

 

[Soukous]

Yes, it is a Rock Pratincole. Too easy eh?

No idea what your bird is, where was it?

[Peter Connan]

That looks very much like a bird I saw last year!

 

We came to the conclusion mine was a hybrid, but I'm guessing yours isn't?

[inyathi]

@Soukous 

 

18 minutes ago, Soukous said:

No idea what your bird is, where was it?

 

In Gloucestershire of course, I'm not sure how much that will help, but you did ask

[Soukous]

Most likely some kind of hybrid, there are many of them in the duck world

[inyathi]

@Soukous No not a hybrid, my last post was a bit of a clue as to where the photo was taken, at least it might be if you're from the UK, and I add that this species is critically endangered and that particular bird is a very long way from home, I will think up some other clues to add later. 

Edited May 12, 2020 by inyathi