I’m starting to get a lot of alerts from eBird about birds that are identified solely with the Merlin Bird Sound ID app based on comments. I think this is very bad practice and not accurate. I think newcomers to the birding world should realize it’s a great tool to learn bird sounds and confirm some of your sightings but it is far from perfect or close to perfect. It gets a lot of birds correct which is pretty amazing, but you need a second confirmation for rarities.
It’s a fun tool that I use frequently but it misidentifies a considerable number of birds. If you’re around a lot of Yellow Warblers you’ll eventually get a Chestnut-sided Warbler.. If you’re around a lot of Lazuli Buntings you’ll eventually get an Indigo Bunting. According to Merlin I’ve had a half-dozen sightings of both in the last month and they were wrong on all accounts as I watched the singing bird and see the bird light up in the app (in most cases anyway).
If I were going off the bird ID app, I’d have Eurasian Jay and a dozen other state birds for Idaho in the last month. I think it’s a great app but please don’t report rarities solely based on the Merlin Bird Sound ID app. It’s off on local birds as well sometimes.
Very interesting behavior, Cliff. A few years ago, I saw an adult Broad-winged Hawk (uncommon in winter here) attending an army ant swarm near San Blas. It was perched on a low branch over the swarm, and I first thought that it was hoping to catch one of the 5-6 Fan-tailed Warblers also attending the swarm. But that wasn’t it at all. It periodically dropped to the ground to grab a beetle or other small arthropod fleeing the ants. At one point, it even stayed on the ground, and rooted around in the fallen leaves looking for bugs.
It seems that Broad-winged Hawks will take advantage of any opportunity to score some grub . . .
Mark Stackhouse westwings@… from Mexico: 01-323-285-1243 (San Blas, Nayarit) 001-801-518-5618 (cellular – U.S. and Mexico) from U.S. 011-52-323-285-1243 or 1-801-518-5618
I’ve nothing exotic to report, but for the past week, I’ve been watching parent chickadees feed their fledgings in my North End backyard. I expected to see them offer sunflower seeds. What’s been a wonder to me is watching the adults land on my rose bushes that are being “enjoyed” by aphids at the moment. They’ve enticed their young to join them, so at times, I’ve had four chickadees gleaning from my roses. Seems a special sight to me.
Very cool, Cliff. I like the idea of a buteo fly-catching! My first salmon fly experience was on the the Middle Fork of the Salmon years ago, and Lewis Woodpeckers we’re acting like empids.
This afternoon I spotted a very small Buteo shaped bird sitting in a dead tree on the bank of the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River about one mile downstream from Island Park Dam. It had dark brown streaks on the sides of the whitish breast, a pale head, white throat framed by dark malar stripes. When it flew I could see it was molting primaries, had a short tail with narrow bands, and the wing beats were noticeably quick. I’ve never seen one here outside migration so it was pretty cool to see this bird.
Even more interesting, it was catching large stoneflies (Salmon Flies) along with a couple Swainson’s Hawks. However it had a different strategy than the Swainson’s, which fly back and forth catching the bugs on the wing. This bird hunted from a perch, flying out to catch passing bugs then returning to a different perch. I watched it for ten minutes or so before losing track of it and I never relocated the bird.
Cliff
— Cliff and Lisa Weisse Island Park, Idaho cliffandlisa@…
