Test your ID skills

14 posts / 0 new
Last post
Anonymous
Test your ID skills

First, thanks Ed for the idea of a guess the bird competition. These photos were taken from afar, I'm pretty sure I know what they are after looking through hundreds of bird photos. My camera quality makes them even harder to get. Here they are:


I haven't ID'd the funny brown bird in the middle yet...

Amateur

I'll try again...

Andy
Andy's picture

Hmmm... noisy friarbird, grey butcherbird, and the very rare fuzzy-breasted brown-headed glossy-bellied bear-bird. I think this is the first photo.

Andy.

Tassie

Lmao, I was going to say the same thing,Friarbird,Butcherbird and Humphrey bear bird attacking a flock of Seagulls.

stevehapp
stevehapp's picture

That would be Pooh Bear.

Amateur

It took me hours to figure out what they were!! I really should've just posted it in the ID section earlier...

Andy
Andy's picture

With practise, you'll be able to recognise birds by their shape, even if you don't see colour etc. And you'll get to the point where you can recognise them by the way they fly, even if you can't see shape properly, too (eg, black-faced cuckoo shrikes go flap flap flap dip, flap flap flap dip etc (and then shuffle their wings when they land).

In the meantime, that's what the forum is for :-)

Amateur

I have another one, I think I know it but I'm not sure.

Tassie

I don't think they are Welcome Swallows, I think either Tree Martins or Fairy Martins.

Amateur

Well, they're not tree martins, they're beak isn't long enough, and the fairy martins I am yet to see a photo with the orange on there chest. I as inclined to think that they are Welcome Swallows. Why do you think they aren't welcome swallows. Is there a major factor I'm missing with my info on welcome swallows?

Amateur

Actually, today I noticed a feature with the welcome swallow that I think sinks this one as being a welcome swallow. Today on the way to school I saw a group of them flying and mentaly noted that they had two little 'spike' looking tips at the end of their tail. Which I am quite sure I can see on the top bird you can see the supposed 'spikes' on the tail. Unless the birds I seen in the morning weren't welcome swallows...

bushanwater
bushanwater's picture

I'd bet the ones in your photo are Welcome Swallows.

See Yez
Trev

Gelmir
Gelmir's picture

G'day Amateur,
I think these are imm Welcome Swallows. The imm birds dont have the long trailing tail spikes that the adults have. A good way to be certain is to see if they have a white band on the end of the top side of the tail. This will ID them as imm Welcome Swallows.
Can you give a location of where the photo was taken? It might help with being more certain.

Amateur

Nurragingy Reserve, Blacktown

 and   @birdsinbackyards
                 Subscribe to me on YouTube