When we arrived at midnight, we found a macabre scene. Several hundred Violet-green Swallows were strewn across the bank of the Rio Grande. Dozens of birds had stuffed themselves into the few natural cavities, and many more were dead amongst the vegetation.
A distant bird on a treetop can be difficult to identify. Distance takes away most, if not all, of the features that we generally use to ID individual birds, leaving us with only gross patterns of dark and light, particularly on this quiz bird.
Weather, and its effects on birds, has long been a key point of focus for many birders. There is perhaps one weather-related birding event, however, that piques birders’ interests more than any other...
In bird ID, it is not finding a single character in the field guide that matches what you saw that enables correct ID, it is ruling out ALL OTHER species that share that character, even a semblance of that character.
SEAZ Birds: The Missing Tracks is a 117-track, 75-species, five-disc digital collection. It includes regular species with missing calls (such as Crissal Thrasher), regional specialties and subspecies (such as Elegant Trogon), rare birds (such as Rufous-capped Warbler), and long-expected state-firsts not yet on the Arizona Checklist (such as Rusty Sparrow).
Disk 1: Hawks to Flycatchers by Diana Doyle ⇐ Click the ZIP icon to download the entire disc 1 set, with liner notes (12MB .zip file). This album of read more >>
Disk 1: Warblers to Grosbeaks by Diana Doyle ⇐ Click the ZIP icon to download the entire disc 1 set, with liner notes (9.4MB .zip file). This album of read more >>
Disk 1: Euphonias to Orioles by Diana Doyle ⇐ Click the ZIP icon to download the entire disc 1 set, with liner notes (9.6MB .zip file). This album of read more >>
Disk 3: Vireos to Mockingbirds by Diana Doyle ⇐ Click the ZIP icon to download the entire disc 1 set, with liner notes (12.6MB .zip file). This album of read more >>
