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Do crows reduce other songbirds? →

December 31, 2014 · 12:57 am

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Bird ID challenge

Saw this bird at my feeder recently and thought it would be a fun challenge for any North American birders. Leave your identification in the comments section. For more information on individuals like this (contains spoilers!) please visit this page.

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← Portland crow poisoning: When it is legal to kill crows and how do we build empathy?

Do crows reduce other songbirds? →

2 responses to “Bird ID challenge”

Mikey

January 7, 2015 at 10:27 pm

Leucistic DEJU? ( Neat Capture!)

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Casey

January 29, 2015 at 5:52 am

When I saw this photo, I thought to myself, ‘Weird looking Junco thing.’ i never knew about leucism until I read your post. Do leusistic birds have harder times finding mates or settling in with a flock? Im curious how this Junco would interact with other Juncos.

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I can’t believe my final field season in Denali wraps up in less than two weeks! I’ll be so sad to leave this stunning place. The evening this photo got taken I was able to see beavers, great-horned owl babies, and a lynx in the course of about an hour walk. What other place is like that??? So with so little time left, is there anything you still want to see or learn about? Let me know how I can squeeze every last drop out of this unique opportunity I have to be here. And feel free to send positive messages. Wrapping up a PostDoc comes with some ~feelings~. I’m so grateful for all the love you send with every post ❤️ 📸 @fletchmoore #Denali #denalinationalpark #alaska #fieldwork #womeninstem #biologist #fieldbiologist #gohike #horseshoelake #adventure

#CrowOrNo was on hiatus last week but it’s back with serious pizazz today! Let me know what you think about this handsome bird in the comments and tag your friends for extra fun. I’ll post the answer at 5:30 PST. Good luck! ANDWER............... ‪Ready for the answer for this week’s #CrowOrNo game??? Today is a special day because today NO ONE IS WRONG. Technically the rule is simply to decide if it’s a bird with the word crow in its common name. As it happens, this bird is sometimes called the New Zealand blue wattle crow. But of course the spirit of the game is to decide if it’s a corvid crow, and this is no corvid! What it really is, is a North Island kōkako, a bird endemic (meaning found only there) to New Zealand. These are songbirds in the Callaeidae family. They are well known for their beautiful songs and unique appearance. So in some ways why this isn’t a crow may have been obvious to you, but let’s breakdown a key field mark anyway. See those blue flaps near the beak? Those are called wattles. No crows have wattles. In fact I can’t think of any corvid that does. What are wattles? Wattles are flaps of skin that hang from the face or neck of birds and mammals. Animals that have wattles include turkeys, moose, goats, chickens, wattlebirds and many more. They can either stand alone or be paired with other structures. Depending on how it presents it can be called any number of fun words including: caruncle, dewlap and snood. Yes, your scrabble game just seriously leveled up‬. ‪They mostly service sexual purposes but can also help release heat on hot days. For more great photos on the beautiful and recovering kōkako check out the Pūkaha National Wildlife Centre’s IG feed @pukahanz. Thanks for playing everyone!!! And thanks to @aditi.rao.3979 for the great suggestion! See you next time. ‬ #Crow #raven #corvid #scicomm #scicommgame #birding #birdsoftheworld #whatbird #game

This kind of shot isn’t my usual Instagram fare, but gosh I love this photo. I’m not sure I’ll capture something as iconically Denali as this weathered dall sheep horn in front of Mt. Denali. Finding this was such a cool reward to an alpine hike that involved some unplanned and uncomfortable terrain made necessary by a couple of bears threatening to crash our party (also very Denali). Most visitors to the park never leave the bus. While that’s a great way to see wonderful views and wildlife, if health and skill permit it’s so, so worth it to go off the beaten track. You never know what extra treasure you’ll find. PS do you know what the difference between horns and antlers are? Antlers are made of bone and shed one a year, while horns are made of keratin and are grown/maintained throughout an animal’s life. So finding a horn is like finding a skull. It’s a memory of an animal. Cherish those memories. 📍Ancestral lands of Tanana, Koyukon, Dena’ina and Ahtna peoples #DenaliNationalPark #MtDenali #DallSheep #Horn #SheepHorn #Alaska #GetOutside #HikingFind #NationalPark #Wildlife #DidYouKnow #hikingadventures

Magpie kids really have one of nature’s best #GlowUp, huh? This juvenile hatched just this summer and already has the most fabulous tail in town. By the time it has its full adult plumage that tail will be just as colorful but a full 24”! We don’t actually know why magpies have such long tails. Run away sexual selection perhaps? That’s when a trait gets more and more exaggerated as females continue to choose the most extreme version. Or is it to aid with sharp turns in flight? We don’t yet know, but in the mean time we can sure enjoy the mystery. 🌈 #magpie #Denali #denalinationalpark #alaska #corvid #bird #nature #pretty #prettybird #ilovecorvids #naturefacts #didyouknow #gooutside #birdwatching

I’m finally taking a day off today, which means that during regular #CrowOrNo hours I’ll be galavanting around Denali with no cell service. So, today’s game is canceled. In its place, I’m offering one of my favorite finds in recent memory and asking what you see. No wrong answers and no 5:30 explanation needed by me. Aside from removing one small piece of lichen that was sticking all askew and not allowing it to lay flat, I in no way altered what you’re seeing. This is really one of my favorite thing ever. I hope you get a kick out of it too! #wolflichen #lookalike #weirdnature #nature #mtrainier #lichen #imlichenit #deer #elk #caribou #amazing #whimsical #whimsicalnature

I’m back in Denali! So many feelings this time around as this trip marks the end of my PostDoc studying Canada jays. What’s next you ask? I’ve got a short term teaching job at the University of Washington and then after that your guess is as good as mine! No matter what though, loving crows and delivering scicomm is in my ~bones~ so don’t expect a hiccup in content! Speaking of bones, what’s this? Why this is a vertebrae from a moose! That hole I’m looking through is where the spinal cord runs. In other words this animal was no joke huge! Despite their big size though, they have the same number of cervical (neck) vertebrae as us. In fact all but two kinds of mammals have seven, just like us. Which two are the exceptions? Take a stab at the answer in the comments, and then flip the subsequent text to find out! 📸@fletchmoore . . . sǝǝʇɐuɐɯ puɐ sɥʇoןS #Fieldwork #wildlifebiologist #denalinationalpark #denali #getoutside #bones #coolnature #moose #biologist #womeninstem #creepy #funfact #alaska

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