Bird Canada gets a lot of emails from Canadians asking for help identifying a bird they have photographed. Some of these can be extremely challenging – juveniles, blurry photos, leucistic birds, hawks from a distance etc. This is the reason, ahem, that I have such a large collection of field guides.
Last week we happened to get two bird identification requests from Manitoba on the same day. I thought I would share them with you so you too can polish your bird ID skills.
From Gary Magnusson
From Scott Dickey
You’re certainly in the ballpark thinking flycatcher – the first bird is an olive-sided flycatcher, one of the bigger Tyrant flycatchers. Then juvenile male redstart.
You’re half correct. Pics two and three are American redstart but the first photo is an olive-sided flycatcher. No one got that right!
Well you got the second and third one correct. The first one though, is an olive-sided flycatcher, one of the larger Tyrant flycatcher family. No one guessed that one!
1. Eastern phoebe juvenile?
2. & 3. Juvenile or female American redstart?
I think Rough-winged Swallow, and American Redstart.
Why do flycatchers have to be so difficult?! I’d guess Western Wood-Peewee… maybe… and female American redstart.