Perhaps when
jjohnwm
is done his fish sandwich he can have a look? 
jjohnwm
is done his fish sandwich he can have a look? Birding!
- Thread starter jjohnwm
- Start date
I'm gonna guess Orange-Crowned Warbler; might be cheating, but I looked up a bunch of different warbler species in a book and picked a random one that looks close enough, lol.
I don't know much about birds, except which ones taste good and which ones make decent pets, for the most part. Still rather fond of them; can't really say I can identify much of the N. American species, but I like to read some field guides every now and then.
Lovely things; too bad my HOA won't allow a decent bird feeder. I do like to feed the neighborhood cardinals and mockingbirds berries every now and then- though they usually gorge themselves on my blueberry bushes before I can pick some anyways.
I don't know much about birds, except which ones taste good and which ones make decent pets, for the most part. Still rather fond of them; can't really say I can identify much of the N. American species, but I like to read some field guides every now and then.
Lovely things; too bad my HOA won't allow a decent bird feeder. I do like to feed the neighborhood cardinals and mockingbirds berries every now and then- though they usually gorge themselves on my blueberry bushes before I can pick some anyways.
Oh man, if our HOA didn't allow birdfeeders my wife would list our house and move us while I'm at work without even asking. That lady loves feeding those birds as much as I love fishkeeping. Though to my knowledge she has yet to join a forum...
I think you may have nailed it. If so it‘s a first for me. I’m used to mostly Yellow Warblers in this area. So unless
jjohnwm
shows up at some point, and has a better idea, the Orange-crowned Warbler is what I’m going with. Thanks!
I'm not a big advocate of the New Age birders, who go out and take a zillion pics and then carefully analyze them at home while having a cocoa. I want to be standing in the swamp, coated with a thin film of mosquitoes, hoping the poison ivy is shorter than my rubber boots, and ID the bird right there in the glory of nature! 
I will grudgingly concede to the use of the Sibley phone app instead of resorting to my older modus operandi of clutching my field guide in my teeth while steadying the binocular with both hands....
But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. In this case, I'm throwing my support behind
Fallen_Leaves16
and calling this a juvie Orange-crowned. The wide-ish, broken eye-ring...actually more like a couple of crescents...combined with the eye-smudge eliminate a lot of the other suggestions seen above. I would expect an Orange-crowned to show some visible although pale and diffuse breast streaks, but they vary quite a bit in various parts of the species' wide range and even my local birds sometimes almost don't show it. Yellowthroats are one of the most common species in and around my property and breed here in good numbers most years; I see a lot of them and this doesn't feel right at all to be one.
This would be a hell of a lot easier if we could see the tail length and primary projection, and especially the undertail covert colour, but you work with what you have. In the end, Orange-crowned Warblers, especially fall youngsters, are sort of like female Brown-headed Cowbirds; just about their main field mark is the fact that they haven't got many field marks.
It's funny, but a single photo like this is much tougher to pick out all the distinguishing features that need to be seen with a lot of birds. A good painting such as one by Peterson or Sibley is able to selectively illustrate all the stuff you need to see and is much more useful than actual physical photos. I mean, if Esox had spotted this bird, he could have quickly painted a likeness which would have nailed down the ID almost immediately!
By the way, why on earth would using a field guide be cheating? That's what they're for. I don't usually carry a book anymore, especially since getting an app on my phone, but when it comes to tough groups like immature gulls, immature sparrows, some fall warblers, etc. I almost always have at least one field guide tucked away in the car, plus a dozen or more assorted ones around the house, just in case something challenging pops up. I love puzzling through difficult ID challenges...but, on the other hand, there's nothing worse than being forced to limit yourself to "Oporornis species" or "unidentified dark-headed gull" or "unknown peep" or some such admission of failure. One of my birding mentors when I was younger sometimes classified small shorebirds as "unknown LBJ"...that's little brown job to the uninitiated.
Esox, if you have the future trajectory of your garden all mapped out past the point when your cat is still lurking about causing trouble...you could just stop feeding him now and hurry the process along...
I will grudgingly concede to the use of the Sibley phone app instead of resorting to my older modus operandi of clutching my field guide in my teeth while steadying the binocular with both hands....But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. In this case, I'm throwing my support behind
Fallen_Leaves16
and calling this a juvie Orange-crowned. The wide-ish, broken eye-ring...actually more like a couple of crescents...combined with the eye-smudge eliminate a lot of the other suggestions seen above. I would expect an Orange-crowned to show some visible although pale and diffuse breast streaks, but they vary quite a bit in various parts of the species' wide range and even my local birds sometimes almost don't show it. Yellowthroats are one of the most common species in and around my property and breed here in good numbers most years; I see a lot of them and this doesn't feel right at all to be one.This would be a hell of a lot easier if we could see the tail length and primary projection, and especially the undertail covert colour, but you work with what you have. In the end, Orange-crowned Warblers, especially fall youngsters, are sort of like female Brown-headed Cowbirds; just about their main field mark is the fact that they haven't got many field marks.
It's funny, but a single photo like this is much tougher to pick out all the distinguishing features that need to be seen with a lot of birds. A good painting such as one by Peterson or Sibley is able to selectively illustrate all the stuff you need to see and is much more useful than actual physical photos. I mean, if Esox had spotted this bird, he could have quickly painted a likeness which would have nailed down the ID almost immediately!
By the way, why on earth would using a field guide be cheating? That's what they're for. I don't usually carry a book anymore, especially since getting an app on my phone, but when it comes to tough groups like immature gulls, immature sparrows, some fall warblers, etc. I almost always have at least one field guide tucked away in the car, plus a dozen or more assorted ones around the house, just in case something challenging pops up. I love puzzling through difficult ID challenges...but, on the other hand, there's nothing worse than being forced to limit yourself to "Oporornis species" or "unidentified dark-headed gull" or "unknown peep" or some such admission of failure. One of my birding mentors when I was younger sometimes classified small shorebirds as "unknown LBJ"...that's little brown job to the uninitiated.
Esox, if you have the future trajectory of your garden all mapped out past the point when your cat is still lurking about causing trouble...you could just stop feeding him now and hurry the process along...
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Hey, he might be a menace to the local wildlife, but that's my cat you're talking about, lol.
The DIY'er in me is itching to construct a cat proof feeder so I can bring forward my bird feeding antics. Not too difficult really but even if he couldn't get to the birds I don't know whether they'd actually visit the garden.
If they saw him mooching about, which he would, even though he couldn't get to them they'd probably feel threatened enough to stay away, so I could be wasting my time.
And of course there's always the chance i'll have these little varmints to put up with too....
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Lol, I've seen plans online for all kinds of imaginative and interesting bird feeder designs to exclude squirrels. There's a number that surround the food with a wire cage that is hooked up to a 110V feed, and can be switched on momentarily to show them the error of their ways. There's also a particularly wonderful design that is spring-loaded and flings the offending critter many feet into the air and across the lawn when tripped. I can't see why these could not be modified and beefed up to work with cats as well.
Cats are said to always land on their feet, right? You could science the bejeesus out of this theory! Do they still land on their feet when they have just received a 110v jolt and have likely peed and pooped themselves? Just how far can they be flung through the air and still do the magic landing trick? Is the trajectory an important factor? How about electrified and launched simultaneously? What's the ballistic coefficient and sectional density of a cat?
Please post results.
Cats are said to always land on their feet, right? You could science the bejeesus out of this theory! Do they still land on their feet when they have just received a 110v jolt and have likely peed and pooped themselves? Just how far can they be flung through the air and still do the magic landing trick? Is the trajectory an important factor? How about electrified and launched simultaneously? What's the ballistic coefficient and sectional density of a cat?
Please post results.
I hope to christ that PETA aren't spying on this, lol.
Keeping fish in glass prisons is one thing, but launching cats with electric shock treatment certainly trumps that, lol.
Keeping fish in glass prisons is one thing, but launching cats with electric shock treatment certainly trumps that, lol.
Thank you for the confirmation, John. I thought about the tail feathers after the fact, and once its eyes finally opened I didn’t dare handle the poor thing any further. At first I thought for sure it was DOA.
Lol, I've seen plans online for all kinds of imaginative and interesting bird feeder designs to exclude squirrels. There's a number that surround the food with a wire cage that is hooked up to a 110V feed, and can be switched on momentarily to show them the error of their ways. There's also a particularly wonderful design that is spring-loaded and flings the offending critter many feet into the air and across the lawn when tripped. I can't see why these could not be modified and beefed up to work with cats as well.
Cats are said to always land on their feet, right? You could science the bejeesus out of this theory! Do they still land on their feet when they have just received a 110v jolt and have likely peed and pooped themselves? Just how far can they be flung through the air and still do the magic landing trick? Is the trajectory an important factor? How about electrified and launched simultaneously? What's the ballistic coefficient and sectional density of a cat?
Please post results.
My mind when I imagine flying squirrels:
I know...I need help...
