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Here are some bird identification tips that I shared in a previous column:
In most hobbies, if everything goes well, there is a progression: beginner, intermediate, expert. Same thing – if, again, all is well – with your job and in your life. For some, there is another level: professional. Think about skiing, fishing, climbing.
Then there is bird watching. In this hobby there is another: a hypercritical expert. You've learned "all the birds" that you're likely to see and are now looking for slight variations in the plumage of each bird you see now, looking for hybrids or subspecies, and you're wondering about the identity of each.
You can become an identification arbiter, sought by those seeking help, or become a real pain.
I've met some supercritical experts. Some that I have darling. Some make me happy to have reached only the intermediate status.
But even an international ornithologist can sometimes help identify a bird. The winter is coming or is here, now, and winter birds can get to your well maintained and appropriate feeders. Some of these species of birds will be in winter plumage and can be confusing (for you, birds know exactly who they are).
Take, for example, the American goldfinch. A goldfinch is a rather dull and small bird (5 inches), dull olive yellow with blackish wings and white wing bars. A nice little beak, uniform in color, eater of seeds. In the summer, when the breeding season approaches, the males become a bright yellow bird with black wings and an instantly recognizable black cap. Most bird guilds show the plumages of winter and summer. If not, consider another guide.
Locally, depending primarily on your location (your habitat), you may have finches in your feeder. Sometimes it is not easy to identify a male house finch from a Cassin finch. Almost always, it is very difficult to separate finches from these two species if you do not really study them. Each species is about the same size and shape. Males are similar and wear shades of red or purple. The females are all brown and white and striated.
The finely plucked finches of the house have various shades of red on the forehead and chest, as well as cap and cheek buds. The sides are strongly striated, the back and the tail are brown. Male Cassin finches have a bright red cap, a pinkish breast and finely striated flanks, a brown back and wings and a pinkish rump.
Yes, you can … distinguish most of them.
If you see doves at this time of year, they are unlikely to be in mourning. Mourning pigeons are almost always vamoose at the beginning of autumn for some southern regions.
What our continent now has everywhere, all year round, is the Eurasian Collared Dove. Wider, more gray than the dove of mourning, a square tail not pointed and a black trail – a necklace – on the nape of the neck. Should be an easy identification of winter.
Tempting identification is not a problem as much as taking notice. Siskins pines are, in most winters of the Hole, well-known feeder birds. These are finches, like other little snow eaters that can come with soft skins – or not. If you are alone, the common red crowds are easier to spot. In a crowd of birds, this can be different.
Pine siskins are small (4 1/2 to 5 inches), dark and strongly striated. They have small, sharp bills. Black skins often, but not always, have flashes of yellow on the wings and tail. Yellow is of varying intensity and hue.
The common redpoll is a little bigger, 5 to 5 1/2 inches. Gray-brown streaks with small conical beaks, a bright red cap on the forehead and a black chin. You will probably be happy when you notice this species. Not every winters at Jackson Hole; In fact, we are almost as far south as these weak types, far away from the north, are at risk of winter.
After listing the visitors in your loader (or elsewhere), record your observations on NatureMappingJH.org and participate in this citizen and science-based wildlife census. Nature mapping includes animals, large and small, birds and their habitats. Your interest is welcome and, I hope, will be rewarded.
Field Notes: Unusual sightings in the region this week include a small group of turkeys in Tetonia; wild turkeys; and peacocks in the Hoback, national.
Sam Kravetsky reported big beak of pine. Sam also reported the first elk come to the Elk National Refuge.
Reports from the north end of the valley: Oxbow Bend, 35 Geese from canada, four adults trumpets swans with a young man over nine Widgeonseight mallards and coyotes howl.
At the Jackson Lake Dam: 73 adults trumpets swans with four cygnets90 common gold eyes150 coots, a Grebe with ears and 700 redheads.
In Flat Creek, at the northern edge of town: more than 50 mixed waterbirds, most of which rings, reported by Bernie McHugh and others on Sunday. A robin in a bath of a bird also reported.
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