GAME: name that bird!

[Galana]

4 hours ago, Galana said:

No need to try these as they are 'for illustrative purposes only' as fair warning.

 

1 hour ago, offshorebirder said:

thankfully we are back on an even keel lately.

Say no more. I only posted those after @Dave Williams's 'encouragement to demonstrate the depths that can be plumbed.

And to brag that I had actually seen a Fiery Topaz!

 

And yes. I feel it safer to steer close to the Avian rocks and lose a few than Charybdis and lose everything. After all the Siren does have wings in some illustrations.

Edited August 28, 2020 by Galana
added text.

[Galana]

Well is nobody else casting their eyes on this offering? Try a few obscure ones, Orinoco Palm Thrush, Himalayan Nightingale or Malaysian Sombre Bulbul. Who knows? You may be right.

 

 

[offshorebirder]

Sorry I am bad at identifying birds from photos to begin with and <blunt mode on> cannot see enough details in this one to get motivated.<end blunt mode>

[janzin]

As I've said before about this game, I think we need to include the continent,  so that people have a starting point. There are 9000+ birds in the world

 

[Galana]

3 hours ago, offshorebirder said:

cannot see enough details in this one

 

2 hours ago, janzin said:

I think we need to include the continent,

I am the new kid on the block and I am happy to oblige but I honestly would not have thought we had to post a full frontal showing all Fieldmarks in one go or surely we risk falling foul of my new favourite phrase "The Longitude Lottery!" and it simply devolves into whoever sees it first wins. (NB. I am referring to most 'obvious' species and different 'rules' would apply to LBJs etc., where specific field marks would be needed to prevent  a guessing game. )

I feel much the same about Continents. How would you do this for migrants that can be present on several at some stage? (Antipodes excepted.) OK,  I suppose we could supplement a photo with where that photo was taken but then you get the location and not just the distribution and I fear that would be too much of a giveaway for many species.

Just my thoughts. Trust me. There is sufficient in my photo to at least get the genera.

Edited August 29, 2020 by Galana
added text.

[janzin]

I guess to me I always thought of this "game" as more about birding skill than internet sleuthing skill. If someone sees it first and gets it first, then so be it; but it should still take birding knowledge to figure it out. If you look back at the early days of this thread, that's more or less what it was about.

 

Perhaps Continents is too specific but the thing is knowing where to start.

 

So, getting back to your bird, it doesn't look like any genera in the Americas so I'm guessing its something Old World. To me that bird looks a bit like some sort of cuckoo or Koel or Malkhoa but the only Asian book I have is India and I don't see anything similar. And now that I'm looking it doesn't seem like the bill is the right shape for any of those.

 

[Soukous]

14 hours ago, Galana said:

Well is nobody else casting their eyes on this offering?

 

I did cast my eyes, but to no avail. Scanned through my books for Africa & India but found nothing that matches. So either I am worse than I thought (be nice) or the markings are not typical. Or it is from somewhere else entirely.

 

At one point I thought it might be a juvenile Isebelline Shrike, but couldn't find any corroborating photos

Edited August 30, 2020 by Soukous

[Soukous]

5 hours ago, janzin said:

I guess to me I always thought of this "game" as more about birding skill than internet sleuthing skill. If someone sees it first and gets it first, then so be it; but it should still take birding knowledge to figure it out. If you look back at the early days of this thread, that's more or less what it was about.

 

Agreed

[Soukous]

9 hours ago, Galana said:

a full frontal showing all Fieldmarks

 

sometimes even this does not lead to immediate recognition, in posts #2085 and  #2094 I had both front and rear shots but it still took a while. 

[inyathi]

@Galana Initially I was focused on the other game and ignoring this one, but as I'd got no further with that one, I decided to take a proper look at this, this proved quite frustrating because I feel I should know what this bird is, I was confident when I saw it, that is was an African species, but then couldn't see anything in my African books with the right shaped bill and a long-enough tail, but then looking through my Indian books and even a South American one producing nothing. That just further convinced me that this is an African bird, but I was struggling to find it, it was bugging me, a bit like having a word on the tip of my tongue and just not being able to think about it, I feel convinced that if I could see the front of it, I would know straight away and then kick-myself.

 

After searching again, I have had a thought, could it by any chance be a rosy-patched bushshrike, we just can't see any of the rosy-patch because of the angle? 

Edited August 30, 2020 by inyathi

[Galana]

6 hours ago, janzin said:

So, getting back to your bird, it doesn't look like any genera in the Americas so I'm guessing its something Old World. .... And now that I'm looking it doesn't seem like the bill is the right shape for any of those.

Really? I am not too aux fait with taxonomic ranks and the divisions twixt family and genus etc., but I am fairly confident this bird does have 'cousins' on your side of the pond.

And your final statement says it all! It's not and you are almost there.

 

As to the nature of the game, as a newbie I view it as a test of recognition skills not a game of snap!  If there is no skill then where is the fun? No I don't mean various parts of birds sticking out of a bush, just a bit of a test rather than a parade of excellent portraits to showcase our birds. We have www for that.

 

I did look back at the start of this game for research and they seem just to have launched with no reference to distribution. That they got two birds wrong, from the photos I could read, just added to the fun. (Take  a look it was a few years ago.)

 

1 hour ago, Soukous said:

So either I am worse than I thought (be nice). We ARE  nice!

At one point I thought it might be a juvenile Isabelline Shrike,. Good call.

Keep it up. A full frontal in this case would be blindingly obvious.

[Soukous]

then maybe a juvenile Red-tailed Shrike? 

[Galana]

35 minutes ago, Soukous said:

then maybe a juvenile Red-tailed Shrike? 

Nope.

@inyathi has it.

1 hour ago, inyathi said:

I feel convinced that if I could see the front of it, I would know straight away and then kick-myself.

(Edit.) Tell me about it.

After searching again, I have had a thought, could it by any chance be a rosy-patched bushshrike, we just can't see any of the rosy-patch because of the angle? 

It could indeed. Well done.

Same bird. Better view. Should I have posted this right away? Be honest.

Note the apparent lack of the red rump mentioned in most Field Guides.

 

Here are two I prepared later on another trip.

Again no red rump.

On this occasion there must have been a dozen birds all duetting away. I did make a video but I seem to have filed it where I can't find it.

 

Just have to imagine the sound.

Interesting fact.

Bushshrikes are all in the family Malaconotidae in which there are seven genera. Rosy patch the single species in its own genera. Very educational this game.

So that's my first go. Am I allowed to stay?

Over to @inyathi

 

 

 

 

[Soukous]

2 hours ago, Galana said:

could it by any chance be a rosy-patched bushshrike, we just can't see any of the rosy-patch because of the angle? 

 

Good call @inyathi. The pinkish tinge on the back and back of the head really threw me as it does not show in any of my books.

[inyathi]

@Galana Thanks, until I looked at few photos of rosy-patched bushshrikes, I was beginning to think that I had lost my mojo slightly, but I'm glad to see that my first impression that it was an African bird was correct, I think the original photo was fine, because that next shot would have given it away, in profile like that, the bill very clearly says bushshrike, and that pink patch should that mean anyone with a book covering East Africa ought be able to pick it out very quickly, if they weren't familiar with the bird.

 

@Soukous Yes that was confusing me a bit, it was the long tail in combination with the size and shape of the bill, that took me to the right answer, because If was right about it being an African bird, both of these features ruled out pretty much all other bird families, the bill kept drawing me back to shrikes, I didn't spot that rosy-patched was a good match straight away, which is why I briefly wondered about India or elsewhere.  

 

I'm quite happy not to be given the continent in the first post, because I like trying to work it out, but I think if no one answers, then it's reasonable to name the continent or a suitable clue to it, but I can see that for the less experienced or well travelled birders not knowing the continent does make it a good deal harder, but then even if you know the continent it will still be difficult if you don't have a book. If you don't have a book covering the specific region that the bird lives in, you might find that you do have books, that will have closely related species in them, similar enough to suggest what you should look up on Google to try and find the answer. 

 

 

Have a go at this bird.

 

 

 

 

 

    

[Peter Connan]

Senegal Coucal?

Edited August 30, 2020 by Peter Connan

[inyathi]

@Peter Connan No, but not far off. 

[michael-ibk]

Black-Throated Coucal?

[Galana]

Damn Michael beat me to it.

[inyathi]

@michael-ibk Yes correct, over to you

 

Black-throated coucal seen in Ghana, it is according to Birds of Africa South of the Sahara a West African regional endemic, as in that book, the similar but smaller Neumann's coucal is split, it is a DRC endemic, so you won't find either species in a Southern or East African bird book, if you don't have Birds of Africa South of the Sahara or a West African book, if you had identified that the bird was probably a coucal, that should have directed you to Africa or Asia, as coucals occur on both continents, if you then failed to find it in any books that you do have, a Google search for coucals or Centropus, would have found you the other species not found in your books, just seeing the name black-throated coucal might have suggested that was the answer. 

 

@Galana I had a feeling when I chose this one, that you might perhaps have seen this bird, but after recent comments, I didn't want to post anything too hard.     

Edited August 30, 2020 by inyathi

[Peter Connan]

47 minutes ago, inyathi said:

@Peter Connan No, but not far off. 

Good thing that.

 

Since my computer's hard drive packed up I have no photos to post...

[inyathi]

1 minute ago, Peter Connan said:

Since my computer's hard drive packed up I have no photos to post...

 

@Peter Connan Sorry to hear that, I hope you haven't lost the photos entirely.

[michael-ibk]

Indeed Peter, hope you can retrieve your  files?

[michael-ibk]

Ok, my candidate:

 

[janzin]

Hmmm clearly a Rallidae but it doesn't quite look like any in Africa that I can find.

 

Knowing that you were in Costa Rica... The bill looks a little big but...Might it be Uniform Crake?