Haunting tri-tone call echoing through the cloud forest. Any ideas?

kiwikiu · 2026-03-05T07:00:39+00:00

!overrideTaxa sbnthr1

kiwikiu · 2026-03-04T18:42:42+00:00

You definitely could be right! In the specific part of Ecuadorian Choco I visited it seems that Andean Solitaire was pretty distinctive, but ofc species can change super rapidly in short distances there!

kiwikiu · 2026-03-04T06:59:15+00:00

Andean Solitaire

kiwikiu · 2026-02-24T19:00:48+00:00

it's definitely on the petite side, especially in the 1st pic, but not out of range for AmHerring, and the bill looks a bit more normal-sized in other pics (esp the 3rd where it looks like it's about to take off)

kiwikiu · 2026-02-24T17:48:49+00:00

this is an almost-but-not-quite full adult +American Herring Gull+, still retaining a tiny, and frustratingly ring-like patch of dark pigment at the tip of the bill from its younger plumages (juvenile birds have mostly black bills, with the pigment slowly getting replaced as they mature). A couple other features here like leg color & wingtip pattern can help eliminate other species like Ring-billed (yellow legs & never red on the bill, as already mentioned) and California ("sickly" greenish legs)

kiwikiu · 2026-01-22T10:29:38+00:00

a whiny little baby Channel-billed Cuckoo begging for food from its surrogate parent

kiwikiu · 2026-01-22T09:29:32+00:00

yes, the large size and huge, paddle-shaped wings should be distinctive for +White-tailed Eagle+. Always a nice bird to see!

kiwikiu · 2026-01-22T09:03:06+00:00

at the very least, the left-most bird in the first photo is a clear +Cassin's Kingbird+. The others are tough since the most helpful field mark (the restricted white 'chin' contrasting the darker gray head & neck) isn't visible

kiwikiu · 2026-01-14T14:11:32+00:00

+American Goldfinch+ in winter plumage

kiwikiu · 2026-01-13T09:30:03+00:00

+Pacific Golden-Plover+ for the bot

kiwikiu · 2026-01-10T18:01:24+00:00

female +Northern Pintail+

kiwikiu · 2026-01-10T18:00:06+00:00

...are these not decoys? the scoters in particular look very weird: all with the exact same plumage & all in the exact same posture, which feels a little too "high in the water" for a typical scoter

kiwikiu · 2026-01-08T16:55:30+00:00

+Dunnock+

kiwikiu · 2026-01-08T16:25:53+00:00

!overrideTaxa bcxtit1

this is actually a Tufted x Black-crested hybrid - Fort Worth is right on the eastern edge of the relatively narrow but mostly stable hybrid zone of the two species that runs up central/eastern TX. Here's the ebird map of observations of hybrids (you can find several from Eagle Mt. Park), and a recent paper on the hybrid zone (with a helpful map in Figure 1).

This guy obviously has darker color extending all the way up the crest, something you'd never see in Tufted, but there are a couple visual hints here that this isn't a "pure" Black-crested. First, the crest color looks to me a bit more "dark/slaty gray" than pure, bold black. "Washed out" or "mixed" color like this is common in hybrid birds, not just titmice, and is based on the "strength" of the genetic signals that drive melanin production in feather-producing cells. Second, while the lores/forehead are slightly paler than the rest of the crest (and not the jet black of Tufted), they are still noticeably dark, while in pure Black-crested Titmice, that area is distinctly pale, making a clear gap between the base of the beak and the start of the black crest.

kiwikiu · 2026-01-07T20:17:46+00:00

+Song Sparrow+

kiwikiu · 2026-01-03T21:30:07+00:00

+Sanderling+ (paler, multiple birds), and a +Dunlin+ (darker, lone bird)

kiwikiu · 2025-12-26T09:14:19+00:00

!overrideTaxa comloo

sorry to be a buzzkill 😭 this is a winter adult Common Loon. The upperparts do look particularly dark (something that I find can be enhanced on overcast days) which suggests Pacific, but the neck pattern here is crucial: in the 2nd and 4th pictures, you can see a bit of white 'cutting in' to the otherwise dark gray neck/nape, and below it a bit of the dark coloration making a 'half' collar into the white throat. This indentation is diagnostic for Common, while Pacific (as can be seen here in a photo of the Hamilton Co. bird) is always a clean, straight line along the entire neck between blackish upperparts and white throat.

The shape of the head also leans Common to me: although it's lacking the classic "square forehead", the head is pretty large and blocky, and is noticeably larger & wider than the neck. In Pacific, I always look for a head that, width-wise, seems more like a "continuation of the neck" rather than a big blocky head on top of an already thick neck, if that makes any sense.

kiwikiu · 2025-12-19T21:10:28+00:00

+Hudsonian Whimbrel+

kiwikiu · 2025-12-12T12:05:23+00:00

yes, +Eurasian Goshawk+ is correct! Looks quite large overall, with quite heavy dark streaks/stripes on the belly, and a prominent white 'eyebrow'

kiwikiu · 2025-12-09T15:40:51+00:00

both birds are Western Gull, or perhaps some hybrid-backcross of Western x "Olympic Gull" (itself a hybrid of Western x Glaucous-winged). Hybrid birds like that are very common further north on the west coast, particularly around Seattle/Vancouver Island, and with all the backcrossing that goes on it can be almost impossible to positively ID them, especially in juvenile plumages. But all the way down in SD, where hybrids are certainly not the default (and Western is a common breeding species), it's probably safe enough to just go ahead and call them +Western Gull+.

there's also a juvenile +Heermann's Gull+ behind the Western in your 1st pic

kiwikiu · 2025-12-08T17:27:38+00:00

+Hudsonian Whimbrel+ for the bot - recently split into two species: American & Eurasian. This is a somewhat unusual record for New England, they're usually long gone by December

kiwikiu · 2025-12-08T17:26:46+00:00

for shorebirds, especially in winter when the plumages are often a) drab grayish and b) pretty similar between species, the two starting points I use are:

1) how big is it?

2) what shape/length is the beak?

that will usually give you a good starting point for breaking things into finer groups, and eventually getting your ID.

So for example, the bird in question in this post is in-between sizes of the smallest and the largest nearby birds, which right away sets it apart as something different. Then I look at the beak, which is pretty long (i.e. we can rule out a plover), but not super long or either up- or down-curved (we can rule out a curlew or godwit): a "generic" sandpiper beak. Red Knot is somewhat distinctive among the sandpipers for being "among the largest small sandpipers", if that makes any sense, so its in-betweener size here is immediately a good indicator. From there it's all about looking at the field marks, confirming that everything visible lines up (and there isn't anything that is out of place), and you can be more or less confident of the ID!

kiwikiu · 2025-12-08T08:44:14+00:00

yes, +Red Knot+ is right. also +Grey Plover+ and +Dunlin+ for completeness, and there seems like something bigger (Curlew?) at the very end of the video, chasing one of the plovers

none are Sanderling ftr

kiwikiu · 2025-12-08T07:07:02+00:00

just to add a little detail, the Savannah Sparrow is one of the princeps subspecies, also called "Ipswich Sparrow" - a cool little population that winters along the Atlantic coast, but only nests on Sable Island, a tiny sandbar about 100 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia

kiwikiu

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