This site uses cookies to improve your experience. To help us insure we adhere to various privacy regulations, please select your country/region of residence. If you do not select a country, we will assume you are from the United States. Select your Cookie Settings or view our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Used for the proper function of the website
Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Strictly Necessary: Used for the proper function of the website
Performance/Analytics: Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
As with any birding locales, there are similarities and there are differences and in this transcontinental case, the differences are obviously much more pronounced but I can’t help but think about comparisons. Here are some: Mega migration : We bear witness to some serious migration in Costa Rica.
But everything else paled in comparison to his first Black-bellied Whistling-Duck in Queens since 2010. Corey had a pretty amazing weekend, birding-wise, with a host of highlights including Sora , Hudsonian Godwit , Wilson’s Storm-Petrel , and more. How about you?
For size comparison, a scrum of albies. I hope you enjoy the photos. Click any one to enbiggen it. Buller’s with a Cape Petrel ( Daption capense ), a vocal fulmarine petrel that is very common here.
Some may have populations that do cross the desert but these are small in comparison to those that don’t cross. That is, species that migrate down western Europe in autumn but rarely cross the Sahara Desert. They stay in south-west Europe and north-west Africa.
Beach Stone-curlew prints with a Brolga print for comparison. The Brolga that sometimes walk the area display the same shape print as the Pied Oystercatchers and Sooty Oystercatchers , but the Brolga prints are substantially larger. When the tide drops at the end of the day the Beach Stone-curlews wander down onto the wet sand.
I took a few shots of the male Calliope Hummer a few years ago, perched next to a male Anna’s Hummingbird ( Calypte anna ) seen in the background here for comparison. and here… that male Anna’s Hummingbird is looking a bit suspicious. He’s moving closer.
Fancy was the most entertaining section to read, and the comparison of Vegas showgirls to birds-of-paradise is spot-on and just a little bit disturbing.
Double-barred Finch and a Bar-shouldered Dove for size comparison on the same rock. Despite the word “little” the Corellas are large birds compared to others that visit our garden apart from the Pheasant Coucal. Little Corellas feeding.
In comparison with ELs, EL 10s and NL 12s have the same field of view, as well as EL 8s and NL 10s. Or those lightweight foldable CL models that fit a shirt pocket, like Pocket or Curio, which I expect to see in the next James Bond movie!
While the 480-odd species recorded within T&T may outstrip our fellow Caribbean islands by leaps and bounds, it pales in comparison to the massive lists of mainland South and Central America. Birding in Trinidad and Tobago has been likened to an introductory chapter in the book of birding in the Neotropics. And for good reason.
At least we have birds… My desire to see boreal specialties pales in comparison to my passion for staying warm and dry. If you live on my side of the globe–north/south axis, of course–you may be as sick as I am of winter weather. Alas, the long slog to spring will take many, many more frigid, blustery weeks.
Whatever Corey will be doing surely pales in comparison, so let’s not even talk about it. Maybe invasion is on my mind because I’m on the eve of an amazing voyage. Thanks to my new best friends at Proexport Colombia, I’ll be birding this weekend in the birdiest country on Earth. How about you?
This means that any comparison of results obtained in different years may not reflect the success of a birder’s endeavours but rather the variation of the overall birding conditions of the respective years, which are outside the sphere of anyone’s influence.
It was kind of this Clay-colored Sparrow (left) and Chipping Sparrow (right) to position themselves so well for comparison purposes. The best way to identify the Chippy is that its eye line reaches both in front of and behind the eye. Happily, nobody would struggle to identify a Lark Sparrow.
birders are rare, so the recent release of a “ National Survey of Birdwatchers: Nationwide and Flyway Comparisons ” is notable. National Survey of Birdwatchers: Nationwide and Flyway Comparisons. Comprehensive surveys of U.S. Some background and my subjective views of the highlights are below. Citation: Patton, Stephanie.
And here, for comparison purposes, is a Yellow-pine Chipmunk that is not of the Olympic Chipmunk subspecies at Mount Rainier National Park. I’m glad that we got the chance to watch a few of them while we enjoyed Olympic National Park and I hope that some day we get to see them again!
Whether this comparison is valid or has an ecological meaning is anybody’s interpretation. As birders, we love to make comparisons, quantify what we see, find the difference between this and that species, keep lists of all sorts, and make self imposed benchmarks. Gray Gulls would be the Laughing Gull tropical counterpart.
Comparison of 180mm macro with the EF 300mm plus Kenko 2X TC The image quality of the 180 mm macro is only a little better. Comparison with 100-400 f/5.6 To do this I have gotten both lenses as close as possible to the subject which means the 300 is 1.25 meters away from the subject and the 180 mm is 0.4 meters away.
Grey-headed Gull Chroicocephalus cirrocephalus poiocephalus As to its origin, a few examples of the African form of the gull Chroicocephalus cirrocephalus poiocephalus are shown here to offer a comparison. Interestingly (credit must go to David J. The only photo I have is the one below, from a trip to Buenos Aires in May 2011.
Those of us in North America may not necessarily associate “uppies” with the highly derived Long-billed Curlew , but check out the Eastern Hemisphere’s Little Curlew for comparison. Long-billed Curlew ( Numenius americanus ) cc-by winnu Godwits Godwits are next: large, impressive shorebirds with awesome, upswept bills.
Here’s is what your run-of-the mill Laysan Albatross chick looks like, for comparison. I was sad to leave Midway for many reasons, but one of them was that I was unable to see what Moby Dick would look like once he shed all his baby down and took off into the Pacific.
… For comparison purposes, here is a shot of a Black-chinned Sparrow, another desert sparrow found at Red Rock Canyon. The bird in these pictures was the first of its species I had seen in six years and it more than made up for lost time. Click the image above for a bigger version.
Now, apart from the fact that most of us have only very rarely seen burning pencils, it is difficult to grasp what he meant by this comparison. You can further check this striking similarity and the sharpness of the comparison by studying the next few images of Greater Flamingos in flight.
By way of comparison, an American Robin is 23-28cm.) Still no parrotbills. oh, yeah, that’s right, its a Black-backed Forktail ( Enicurus immaculatus ). A bad photo of a good bird. Collared Falconet ( Microhierax caerulescens ) at 15cm long, it is not particularly big. (By www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkGCWbbFlD0
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the most popular American poet during the nineteenth century though as the years have passed his star has dimmed in comparison to other poets of the period. Many see his work as derivative of the European poets, unoriginal, and suitable only for children.
I’m also a big fan of birds lining up in pairs for purpose of comparison. There seem to be an unusually large number of American Wigeons on the lake this winter. Which is fine… I like American Wigeons. These two are a Cinnamon Teal and a Blue-winged Teal. Ring-billed Gulls are the most common gulls at the lake.
My own Solitary Sandpiper sighting seems paltry in comparison. Where some might dwell on billions of dollars in property damage and lost productivity, birders see mega-opportunity! What was your best bird of the weekend? Tell us in the comments section about the rarest, loveliest, or most fascinating bird you observed.
The juvenile Pied Oystercatcher gives you a glimpse into its development when it stretches a wing out and when it stands close to its parents for size comparison. Adult and juvenile Pied Oystercatcher. Juvenile Pied Oystercatcher having a stretch. Juvenile Pied Oystercatcher front on.
When I could, I tried to do side by side comparisons: Above is a Chaffinch that I took with the iPhone and my scope. The camera has surprising light gathering ability–although using a Swarovski ATM 80 doesn’t hurt the process either. Here’s the same Chaffinch but taken with my SLR.
At first, he was chased by a Hooded Crow , roughly appearing similar in length, but the crow visibly massive and heavier, so the falcon took flight to find himself another dry branch and land near a Common Kestrel, offering more comparison time. Finally, one Lesser Whitethroat in a bush by the road… and a sunset turns into darkness.
Here’s another female Broad-billed Hummingbird , and a Dusky Hummingbird for comparison. It is not present in our migratory visitors, I’m happy to say. But with our residents, this pattern isn’t very helpful at all. Male and female Duskys both have this facial pattern, darn them!).
So comparisons of bill shapes, foot shapes, and the like can certainly stimulate the imagination, but we need rigorous science to explore and synthesize more molecular work, morphological analysis, and biogeographical hypotheses in order to close more gaps in our understanding.
Birding by Impression is a conscious, deliberate method of identifying and recognizing birds based on the study and evaluation of “distinctive structural features and behavioral movements” and comparison with nearby and similar species. So say Kevin T.
The subject begs for facile metaphors and easy comparisons, and rejecting such is one of my favorite hobbies after birding itself. I am writing (hopefully, by the time this posts, have written) on the odd confluence of good birding territory and historic gay cruising zones. The Magic Hedge in Chicago, of course. Plum Beach in Brooklyn.
The Tirolean Alps are – well – rather barren by comparison. I then lived in Central America where there were more bird species than my bird books (and my competence) could hope to identify. But then again, those are some pretty hard acts to follow.
To allow for a better comparison, all three soared in the same thermal. A Western Marsh Harrier quartered the reedbed, soon a Common Buzzard appeared, then another… no, wait, the second one had visibly longer wings and… rufous tail! It turned out to be a Long-legged Buzzard !
Even by comparison with a couple of Dunlin and a one-legged Western Sandpiper, the Least Sandpiper look less than a satisfying mouthful. Most of you would have been looking at much bigger birds last Thursday. The individuals above were seen at the top of the tide, pushed hard against the shore of San Francisco Bay.
For easier comparison, confusingly similar pairs are shown on the same page, side by side. 850 illustrations by Tomasz Cofta are both accurate and stunning, and 2,400 photos by Michal Jakuj and 189 other photographers from Europe and Asia are good documentary shots.
Also, each major habitat is accompanied by an illustrated climate graph that allows easy comparisons between habitats. Three pages of text are illustrated with superb photos of a forest in the mist, two birds and a mammal.
I figured that it is only fair and right to include the male Mountain Bluebird ( Sialis currucoides ) for comparison. Firstly, if you check the wonderful photo galleries here at 10000 Birds, you will find some excellent shots of the female Mountain Bluebird that Corey took in New York, of all places! Click on photos for full sized images.
In comparison, what I call a true pelagic trip was one that had as ultimate prize storm petrels, shearwaters, jaegers, skuas, tropicbirds, albatrosses, and other unexpected surprises seldom seem near the coast.
Despite considerable speculation, the evolutionary origins of this species’ remarkable tool behaviour remain largely unknown, not least because no naturally tool-using congeners have yet been identified that would enable informative comparisons. Here we show that another tropical corvid, the ‘Alal? ( Although the ‘Alal?
They aren’t rare birds by any means, but a leisurely view like this was without comparison. Even Channel-billed Toucans calling loudly in the distance couldn’t tear me away from this pair. The presence of austral migrants makes T&T an attractive birding destination all year round.
For comparison, this is the male Purple Finch ( Carpodacus purpureus )… And the female Purple Finch … One of the physical distinctions between the Cassin’s Finch and the Purple Finch that may be most obvious is the bill shape. This is the more widespread distribution map for the Purple Finch.
We organize all of the trending information in your field so you don't have to. Join 30+ users and stay up to date on the latest articles your peers are reading.
You know about us, now we want to get to know you!
Let's personalize your content
Let's get even more personalized
We recognize your account from another site in our network, please click 'Send Email' below to continue with verifying your account and setting a password.
Let's personalize your content