The good old days.

[Morph]

As I have said in the thread "bird id with a twist". I have a little collection of old bird ID books, and a great deal of them would have made ID'ing a little harder than today. But this image from a 1910 book also shows how very unPC they were. This was probably the best way they could get a picture of Hawfinch

[Hedge Witch]

There is only one thing I can say - why, ohhhhh, why?

[Morph]

And another unPC picture from the book, It would seem some poor Blackbird in someones back garden just happened along and copped it, you can see the tresses on the Merlin. Funny thing is thats the only picture of a Blackbird in the book.

[frankok]

It's hard to see anything in those pictures

[Morph]

Originally Posted by frankok

It's hard to see anything in those pictures

Hello and welcome to WAB, dont want to sound condesending but if you click on the pic it comes up in a new window larger. But I'm not sure if it is a Blackbird after all looks a little pale, possible Song Thrush (Ohh nooo here we go again)

[aeshna5]

Originally Posted by Morph

Hello and welcome to WAB, dont want to sound condesending but if you click on the pic it comes up in a new window larger. But I'm not sure if it is a Blackbird after all looks a little pale, possible Song Thrush (Ohh nooo here we go again)

I agree that it definitely isn't a Blackbird- the underside is far too pale. I would agree it's a Song Thrush- there is a hint of spotting on the breast.

[epops]

those un pc books i got a copy of essex bird from the 1800's and it says about various birds being shot by mr such and such the thing is though they make facinating reading also it says that the corn crake was a fairly common visitor its the little snippets like this that make them so readable and how the owner of Lawford hall regularly took a raven from the nest of the birds on his land and tamed them

[Morph]

Originally Posted by epops

those un pc books i got a copy of essex bird from the 1800's and it says about various birds being shot by mr such and such the thing is though they make facinating reading also it says that the corn crake was a fairly common visitor its the little snippets like this that make them so readable and how the owner of Lawford hall regularly took a raven from the nest of the birds on his land and tamed them

I agree I have quite a few old books ranging back a good few years, some of the text is sometimes riviting other times astonishing but always interesting, I personally like some of the name changes over the years, next time the Willow Warbler/Chiffchaff debate is on I'm going for Willow Wren.

[Morph]

To be fair it must have been very difficult to photograph wild birds with the equipment they had in 1910 (heaven knows its hard enough today).
As you can see from this photo they resorted to taking pics of stuffed specimens.

[squishy]

those are disgracful, all of them, i'd rather have those crapply drawn ones from your pocket book, then have to look at photos like that to ID birds