[Birdtalk] Help Me Identify Birds

[Kristin Purdy]

Mike,

Your enthusiasm for your new hobby is great. I love it when a new birder 
joins the list servs, because we get to experience the excitement of 
discovering birds all over again through your eyes.

The bird on the wire is a dove as you mentioned, a young Mourning Dove. Not 
all birds will be found in open areas like that around ATK, nor do all perch 
on wires, so those two clues of habitat and behavior help narrow down the 
field. A Mourning Dove is also a good-sized bird with a unique 
silhouette--pin-headed with a long, pointed tail. I think your bird is a 
young one due to the dark overall tone and lack of subtle colors around the 
upper breast and head that adult males and females have at this time of 
year.

Since a lot of the flycatchers look the same to you, you're right there with 
birders who have been flogging themselves with flycatcher ID for decades. 
The family of flycatchers known as the Empidonax are among the most 
difficult to separate by sight alone; they often must be identified with the 
combination of vocalizations at this time of year when males might be 
singing in specific habitats for the species. You might have to leave some 
of them unidentified in the field as well. You got great images for ID 
purposes of your flycatcher, however, and you noticed an important 
habitat/behavior combination that identifies your flycatcher as a 
Cordilleran. Cordilleran Flycatchers are known for sometimes nesting on 
buildings in montane areas. In addition, their bills often look too big for 
their heads and the lower mandibles are entirely or almost entirely 
yellow-orange. They have a big-headed appearance relative to their body size 
as well. A couple of the other Empidonax flycatchers have a yellow or 
yellow-orange lower bill, but wouldn't be found flying around a mountain 
cabin at this time of year.

Good call on your Ruby-crowned Kinglet. You photographed what appears to be 
a baby, so that may also be why the parents were going ballistic around you. 
The fact that the birds wouldn't hold still long enough to get more images 
points to a kinglet ID, too. It's a treat to see the bird's ruby crown as 
prominently as this bird shows. Birds have a tiny muscle at the base of each 
feather that allows them to fluff feathers up when agitated, preening or 
trying to keep warm, or to slick them down when relaxed or sometimes, just 
alert. The changeable appearance of a bird due to feather adjustment often 
causes birds to look slightly different that what field guides have room to 
show. Notice how much like a flycatcher a kinglet looks when the ruby crown 
is not visible.

Keep up your birding; we like to see what you're doing and it's great to 
have another person keeping an eye on Box Elder and Cache Counties.

Kris
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Fish, Michael
  To: birdtalk at utahbirds.org
  Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 7:47 AM
  Subject: [Birdtalk] Help Me Identify Birds




  I have posted a few pictures on pbase of birds that I am unable to 
identify. I'm not suggesting that these birds are rare or anything 
spectacular, rather I am just asking for help identifying them because of my 
inexperience or newness to the birding community.



  One of the birds is a flycatcher that was hanging around our cabin at 
Panguitch Lake all weekend. A lot of the flycatchers look the same to me.



  Also while I was at Panguitch Lake, I had a quick glimpse of a pair of 
birds that became very agitated with me when I presumably walked into their 
nesting area. These little birds were jumping all around me in the pines and 
wouldn't hold still long enough for me to get a good picture. I managed to 
get a couple blurry pictures of one of them that had a red crested head. The 
other bird didn't have any red and I didn't get a photo of that one. I am 
assuming they were a mated pair. They were maybe Ruby-crowned Kinglets as 
near as I can tell from my field guides? The red crest on this bird seemed 
broader than pictures in my guides and on Utah Birds.



  Another bird is a dove of some sort - I think. I work out near Promontory 
and I saw this dark looking dove sitting on a wire as I was driving down the 
road. I was able to get a couple of pictures of it before I had to move for 
traffic. I'll bet other drivers hate bird watchers - always stopping at the 
sight of a bird by the road. Some of those other drivers have shown me their 
bird - it's a quite common bird found year round and nationwide J.



  Anyway - pictures of my unknown birds are posted at www.pbase.com/mfish



  I named the Gallery "Birds - Help Me Identify"



  Thanks for your help and for sharing your knowledge.



  Mike Fish



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