GAME: name that bird!

[offshorebirder]

I know the  type - not specific species but I'll wait  and give others a chance.  

[inyathi]

@pedro maia Having had a thought what this might be, I decided to ignore it in the hope that someone else would have ago since no one has, I'm not absolutely certain because I haven't looked at alternatives, but I'll go with my first thought and say is it a blue rock thrush?

[pedro maia]

1 hour ago, inyathi said:

@pedro maia Having had a thought what this might be, I decided to ignore it in the hope that someone else would have ago since no one has, I'm not absolutely certain because I haven't looked at alternatives, but I'll go with my first thought and say is it a blue rock thrush?

 

You´re right @inyathi, it just looked a bit different also because of early morning light effect, your turn.

[inyathi]

I did wonder because it looks very pale, if I was being a bit hasty just going with my first thought, but I concluded that the pale colour was just an effect of the light and that a blue rock thrush would look like than with the sun on it. I also thought you were probably banking on the fact that the bird was not in a typical pose and this along with the pale colour might throw people off, for a bit.  

 

I don’t suppose this will be too hard, but have a look at this bird.

 

 

[janzin]

I want to say Arnot's Chat but the white patch isn't big enough. But I think some kind of chat...

 

[inyathi]

It doesn't look like anyone is going to go for this, so time for a clue, which is that all the clues you need are in the photo.  

[lmSA84]

@inyathi - I would guess it’s a boulder chat? 

[inyathi]

@lmSA84 Thanks, I was beginning to think that no one was going to take a guess at this one 

 

You are absolutely correct it is a boulder chat in Zimbabwe.

 

Over to you.

[Soukous]

On 6/27/2020 at 5:45 PM, inyathi said:

for a clue, which is that all the clues you need are in the photo

 

excellent clue

[janzin]

That's one odd looking Boulder Chat. I looked at Boulder chat several times, even looked through google images and could find none with white on the head. Maybe someone pooped on his head?

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by janzin

[inyathi]

@janzin I must say that conducting a Google Image Search for boulder chat, seemed to produce far more pictures of people, you might wish to hook up with, in Boulder Colorado, I thought perhaps you might have got a bit distracted  It's definitely a boulder chat, but I do agree that none of the illustrations show any pale on the head, and the books don't describe this,  I have though found a couple of images from Malawi that appear to show the same pale crown on the head.

 

https://www.gobirding.eu/Trips/Malawi10.php

 

I think it is actually just an effect of the light,  because it extends on to the beak, and also looking at the bright sunlight on the rock below the bird, but it seems a bit surprising that bright sun would make a basically black bird appear to have a crown quite that pale, but I can't think of another explanation. We were specifically looking for boulder chats at the time, at a prime site for the bird, and there's nothing else there, that looks like this, the tail is much too long for any of the other chats, Arnott's chat which you first thought about and rejected doesn't occur in this area. Besides, I'm completely confident that our guides wouldn't have misidentified it. I'd been storing that photo up for a while, intending to post it in this game, I hadn't checked the illustrations and spotted that it doesn't look quite like the pictures, so I didn't think it would be that hard. But after your comment, I thought I'd better just check that I was completely right. 

 

 

 

[Soukous]

38 minutes ago, inyathi said:

conducting a Google Image Search for boulder chat, seemed to produce far more pictures of people, you might wish to hook up with, in Boulder Colorado,

 

[lmSA84]

@Soukous, @janzin, @inyathi and @offshorebirder - apologies all for my tardy efforts! I've killed this game before with my slow response so really I shouldn't ever respond (I just can't help myself sometimes )

 

This one should be pretty straight forward

 

[offshorebirder]

Brewer's Sparrow (Spizella breweri)

 

 

[lmSA84]

@offshorebirder - right you are!

 

I actually also owe you a response from page 74 when I last killed this game - the answer was a female Purple Sunbird - cinnyris asiaticus. In that case photographed in Oman

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_sunbird

[offshorebirder]

Drat and I do not have anything ready - I should learn not to answer unless I have a shot handy.

 

This one is dirt simple to ID but one of my favorite birds.   

 

[janzin]

Female Arizona Woodpecker

 

[offshorebirder]

Right you are @janzin.   

 

I liked the old name of Strickland's Woodpecker.     They are  even trying to change the  scientific name from  Dryobates stricklandi to Dryobates arizonae.   What crap.   I can see the need to occasionally change the common name and even changing scientific name if genetic studies show different taxonomy.   But getting change-happy with scientific names is WRONG.  Why erase all traces of Strickland - he deserves to be thrown a bone since he made it known to science.

 

Over to you @janzin, hope you have one ready ;-)

 

 

[janzin]

1 hour ago, offshorebirder said:

Right you are @janzin.   

 

I liked the old name of Strickland's Woodpecker.     They are  even trying to change the  scientific name from  Dryobates stricklandi to Dryobates arizonae.   What crap.   I can see the need to occasionally change the common name and even changing scientific name if genetic studies show different taxonomy.   But getting change-happy with scientific names is WRONG.  Why erase all traces of Strickland - he deserves to be thrown a bone since he made it known to science.

Well its just a split;  there still IS a Strickland's Woodpecker...it is just found/endemic to Mexico.  I am not sure there is any talk of changing the scientific name of that one.

 

 

1 hour ago, offshorebirder said:

 

Over to you @janzin, hope you have one ready ;-)

 

 

 

Not by a long-shot LOL.  Now I have to find a bird AND a scene for the "where is this" quiz...what have I done??

[offshorebirder]

16 minutes ago, janzin said:

Well its just a split;  there still IS a Strickland's Woodpecker...it is just found/endemic to Mexico.

 

Oh I see.  They must have split the Sierra Madre population from the Arizona Sky Islands population - so new common and scientific names would be needed for the  new non-nominate  species.

 

[campsafari2015]

ohhh this looks fun!

[janzin]

okay try this one.

 

 

[ElaineAust]

Square Tailed Drongo??

[janzin]

9 hours ago, ElaineAust said:

Square Tailed Drongo??

 

Nope.

 

I'll give it to the end of today and then I guess I'll have to provide more clues.

 

 

[marg]

American Crow