GAME: name that bird!

[offshorebirder]

Actually, doing a Google image search for 'Northern Shovelor ducklings'  also turns up some very young ones that look close to @Soukous' birds.   

 

 

[Soukous]

Oh well, it was easy then. 

 

Shoveler chicks it is

 

back to you @inyathi

Edited July 22, 2020 by Soukous

[offshorebirder]

Kind of a relief - I don't have any photos ready to submit...

[inyathi]

@Soukous It should have been difficult, but obviously I had to look at British birds first, before even considering ducks from more exotic locations, but what made it quite easy is having a copy of a Field Guide to Nests, Eggs and Nestlings of British and European Birds to hand, that saved having to look up a whole bunch of ducks online, that don't have similar ducklings, the shape of the bill on the bird at the back though is what clinched it. There must be any number of ducks in the genus Anas around the world that have ducklings that look almost exactly the same, knowing it was most likely a British duck, changed it from very hard to quite easy. 

 

I thought I'd be kind with this next one and not post anything too hard, have a go at this pair.

 

 

Edited July 22, 2020 by inyathi

[janzin]

Gurney's Sugarbird? 

 

As soon as I saw protea I said "sugerbird" and it definitely isn't Cape Sugarbird, so that's the only other Sugarbird option...

 

 

[Soukous]

I also think Gurney's Sugarbird. Rats! I should have looked last night to see if you'd posted a bird.

[inyathi]

@janzin It seems I was being too kind, yes Gurney's sugarbird in Zimbabwe, well I guess that just means I've got one less easy one to post, so I'll have to make the next a hard one

 

Over to you  

[janzin]

an interesting aside, as I am going through photos to find "mystery birds" I am finding many mysteries in the sense of photos I never ID'd, or if I did, I don't remember what they were! I am tempted to post one here so maybe someone would ID it for me, hah, but then of course I wouldn't be able to say if its correct.

 

Anyway, here's one I do know. As I held you folks off for at least a bit with a black bird last time, here's another one for you.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 23, 2020 by janzin

[offshorebirder]

@janzin - Purple-throated  Cuckooshrike?

[janzin]

Ha, no it’s not @offshorebirder  I actually thought maybe you were pulling my leg, I had to look up if that’s a real bird (it is!). It would have been cool if I could pull out two purple-throated birds in a row, but...no, never saw that one. 

 

 

[offshorebirder]

@Janzin - LOL - it is a real bird -  I am terrible in terms of interpreting photos but I hope this PTCS photo helps explain my mistake:

 

[Soukous]

understandable error @offshorebirder

@janzin could have said Yes and few people would have argued.

[janzin]

Well that surely is a very similar looking bird, at least in that photo!

 

It seems I'd better give a clue as no one else has attempted even a wild guess. Problem is I'm not sure what clue I can give that won't give too much away.

 

I'll start by saying that @offshorebirder's guess is on the wrong continent. 

 

[Soukous]

19 minutes ago, janzin said:

Well that surely is a very similar looking bird, at least in that photo!

 

It seems I'd better give a clue as no one else has attempted even a wild guess. Problem is I'm not sure what clue I can give that won't give too much away.

 

I'll start by saying that @offshorebirder's guess is on the wrong continent. 

 

 

OK, so it is not Africa. I somehow suspected that but I had to google the Purple-throated-Cuckooshrike to be sure. 

Perhaps a Grackle of some description. I'm not very familiar with them so I wouldn't know which one to choose. Let's say Common Grackle, just because the eye is not white.

Edited July 24, 2020 by Soukous

[janzin]

@Soukous not any kind of Grackle. In fact, I'll say not any kind of icterid. So not any sort of blackbird either.

 

 

 

[inyathi]

@janzin I've been holding off on this one, in the hope that someone else will get it, I can entirely understand why @offshorebirder went for that cuckooshrike, seen from a much the same angle they do look pretty similar, my mind though, was immediately drawn to an entirely different continent and it's the not the same one that you are looking at @Soukous, I won't say more lest, I distract you from your sojourn around the Greek Islands, can't have you winning two games at once   

Edited July 24, 2020 by inyathi

[Soukous]

1 hour ago, inyathi said:

I won't say more lest, I distract you from your sojourn around the Greek Islands, can't have you winning two games at once

 

No worries on that score. I am unlikely to win either of them. 

[janzin]

@inyathi if you have a guess (well knowing you it will be a well-thought out and researched idea, not a guess!) then go for it...as it seems no one else is biting...

 

 

[Soukous]

9 hours ago, janzin said:

it seems no one else is biting...

 

not because I don't want to, but because I am stumped 

[inyathi]

Before offering an answer later, I might say @Soukousthat your choice of words in your reply to me yesterday, was rather apt, if that helps at all 

[Soukous]

2 minutes ago, inyathi said:

Before offering an answer later, I might say @Soukousthat your choice of words in your reply to me yesterday, was rather apt, if that helps at all 

 

Sorry, not much,  it is the weekend after all 

[inyathi]

@Soukous Okay, no worries mate 

 

It is indeed the weekend and currently I'm at the WOMAD Festival, well I should be, I'm having to settle for WOMAD at Home on Radio WOMAD, which has just started, sitting on my own in front of my PC listening to the radio is not quite the same as sitting in a field surrounded by thousands of other people, well at least I won't get rained on. or have to face the delights of festival loos, but I'll be spending all day thinking about all of the great food I'm missing out on., but hey ho, I'll make the best of it 

 

https://www.mixcloud.com/live/WOMADFestival/

 

 

[inyathi]

@janzin When your photo first came up, one continent immediately came to mind, Australia. I just had an inkling that that would be where it was from, I suppose you could call it birders intuition, but really I suppose it is down to fact that I've had the good fortune to visit all six inhabited continents and have thus seen birds from all of them and have books covering parts of all of them. So even if I don't really have much of an idea what the bird is, I usually have some inkling to as which continent it may come from, just from the look of it, provided of course it's not something like a lark or a pipit that could easily be Asian or African, then I wouldn't know, there is also clearly some overlap between Eurasian and North American bird families, some of the thrushes are pretty similar, those could cause me to come unstuck as well. With your bird, I knew it wasn't an African bird, and it just didn't call to mind any birds I've seen in South America or Asia or that I've noticed in any of my books for those regions and I had recently been through my Birds of Northern South American to find your fruitcrow. I've not been to Central America but I tend to think the birds there are all very similar to those in South America and it didn't look like it could be from further north. That really only left Australia, since I know that you'd been there fairly recently and haven't as far as I know been to New Guinea, the latter is a bit of a blank on my map, in that besides the Birds of Paradise, that I've seen on TV, I don't really know anything about the other birds found there. The point, is that although I had no real idea what the bird was, I just knew I needed to reach for my old field guide to Australian Birds first, it took a bit of time to find it, it's amazing how even when you have a good photo you struggle to find the bird in the relevant book, but the angle did make it slightly tricky. 

 

Anyhow it's a shining flycatcher, found in the north of Australia in WA, NT and QLD and also in New Guinea. 

Edited July 26, 2020 by inyathi

[Soukous]

has anyone ever called you a smart arse @inyathi 

[Soukous]

On 7/24/2020 at 6:36 PM, inyathi said:

can't have you winning two games at once 

 

and look what you just did