Anyone help identify the below birds for me, a poor old newbie at birding?
Bad photos, but good enough for ID purposes (mostly).
These were taken in Ontario (Lake Ontario or else 3 hours north in the woods of Algonquin Park).
Thanks all so far.
I do have some guidebooks back home, but am trying to catch up on some image processing while away on a multi-month overseas assignment. (Will be home soon.)
#1 Common or Red Breasted Merganser
#2 Eastern Kingbird
#3 Long Tailed Duck
#4 Greater Scaup
#5 Buffleheads
#6 Tufted Duck
#7 Common Merganser
#8 Red Breasted Merganser
#9 Common Merganser
#10 Griebe (Horned I believe)
I only count ten pictures not 13?
When you get a field guide get one with drawings of the birds, not pictures! The drawings will be much better for ID. I use Nationla Geogrpahic Birds Field Guide to the Birds of North America
You are lucky to have those subjects available!
Karl
Karl gave you just about everything you requested, so I'll just add the following (using your image numbers): #1 is a Common Merganser, & #9 is a Ring-necked Duck rather than a Tufted Duck, and #13 is a Horned Grebe, just as Karl suspected.
Oldraven wrote:
Karl gave you just about everything you requested, so I'll just add the following (using your image numbers): #1 is a Common Merganser, & #9 is a Ring-necked Duck rather than a Tufted Duck, and #13 is a Horned Grebe, just as Karl suspected.
Thank you for clarification, I was on the right page for the Ring-necked but overlooked it!
Glad to have the help sir!
Karl
Hey - thanks all for the great input.
And didn't know there was an app - I will definitely check that out GP.
Karl - I would never have thought that drawings would be better, thanks for pointing that out.
Finally, sorry for the confusing numbering:
they are the sequence numbers from the web album where the images are stored,
and I only used in my post 10 of the 13 images on the web album (had multiple bufflehead shots).
Skip the apps and get a book with drawings like Karl suggested.
For a book, I recommend the Peterson or Sibley Guides but there are others that are good. Be sure to get a guide that is as specific to your geography as you can... Peterson and Sibley do. As a rookie, I appreciate a more limited set of birds.
My first book had photos.... awful.
Regarding the app... I purchased the Sibley app for 'droid, and while really cool in that it has sound recordings of each bird, it is really useless for identifying birds in the field. You need a book where you can compare one to another and the smart phone screen is just not large enough... and Sibley only shows one bird at a time on the screen.
