mystery pretty birds - ID

[bobbarber]

Originally Posted by florence

yep - thats us - failures! :P

I agree with david156, you are not failures but going through a learning process. We have an ex gravel pit on our land which tends to flood from time to time. Many years ago my son who was quite young came running up to me yelling ``Dad there`s a big black parrot down the pit``. Out of curiosity I went to take a look and it turned out to be a cormorant ...Bob

[florence]

Originally Posted by Jason Claxton

Hi Genevieve and Florence ,to say that a Greenfinch was a Golden Oriole,tells me how much you both appreciated the Greenfinch,this enthusiasm will hold you in good stead when you study birds.Was it a book that gave you the idea of the Lesser goldfinch?Jason

no, i typed yellow bellied bird into google and the lesser goldfinch came up, and i looked on the RSPB website but they didnt have it. i didnt think of it being a greenfinch at first as my picture looked like the bird had a really yellow belly but now i have compared it to another picture of a greenfinch i can see all the similarities between them!

[florence]

Originally Posted by Jason Green

Just a guess, based on logic - maybe because the Greenfinch isn't as goldy-yellow as a Goldfinch they thought Lesser, even though the LG is actually more so! That would have been my reasoning in their situation

yer..we will say that happen as it shows we at least tried to use logic! thanks!

[Jason Claxton]

Originally Posted by florence

no, i typed yellow bellied bird into google and the lesser goldfinch came up, and i looked on the RSPB website but they didnt have it. i didnt think of it being a greenfinch at first as my picture looked like the bird had a really yellow belly but now i have compared it to another picture of a greenfinch i can see all the similarities between them!

Ah that would explain it ,so you may have searched through all the yellow bellied birds in the world via google to get to this Um I wonder whether a book on British Birds might be the best next step for you bothJason

[david156]

Originally Posted by florence

no, i typed yellow bellied bird into google and the lesser goldfinch came up, and i looked on the RSPB website but they didnt have it. i didnt think of it being a greenfinch at first as my picture looked like the bird had a really yellow belly but now i have compared it to another picture of a greenfinch i can see all the similarities between them!

Hi.

The RSPB website is a good one for basic identification of british birds. Its a good place to start

[genevieve]

usually go to rspb and then the bird id on this website, we have a bird id book but i tend to go to that after looking at rspb and this id thing cos otherwise ill end up trawling through page by page, so i like a bit of an attempt at a head start. with this example though i think we both lost our heads a little :P we went out through the woods yesterday and saw tons of greenfinches and were like...ahh..greenfinch, lol its more fun when you know what your looking at (woulda been pretty fun to go loudly oo golden oriole and got poeple nearby all excited though :P)

[Jason Green]

Originally Posted by florence

yer..we will say that happen as it shows we at least tried to use logic! Thanks!

[david156]

Originally Posted by genevieve

usually go to rspb and then the bird id on this website, we have a bird id book but i tend to go to that after looking at rspb and this id thing cos otherwise ill end up trawling through page by page, so i like a bit of an attempt at a head start. with this example though i think we both lost our heads a little :P we went out through the woods yesterday and saw tons of greenfinches and were like...ahh..greenfinch, lol its more fun when you know what your looking at (woulda been pretty fun to go loudly oo golden oriole and got poeple nearby all excited though :P)

Thats called stringing. That would upset the twitchers a bit!!!!

I think we've all got a little carried away identifying birds and loose our heads a little. Its that initial buzz that you get when the bird looks different or its something you have never seen even if it is common. I went out yesturday afternoon and the only really exciting bird I saw was a Barn Owl...

Great Birds to see and I watched it hunting in the distance for half an hour. It only came close enough to photo the once, but it still made my day.

[florence]

[quote=Jason Claxton;558245]Ah that would explain it ,so you may have searched through all the yellow bellied birds in the world via google to get to this Um I wonder whether a book on British Birds might be the best next step for you bothJason[/Q

umm...good plan!

[florence]

Originally Posted by david156

Thats called stringing. That would upset the twitchers a bit!!!!

I think we've all got a little carried away identifying birds and loose our heads a little. Its that initial buzz that you get when the bird looks different or its something you have never seen even if it is common. I went out yesturday afternoon and the only really exciting bird I saw was a Barn Owl...

Great Birds to see and I watched it hunting in the distance for half an hour. It only came close enough to photo the once, but it still made my day.

aww...thats really cool - lucky! really good picture too...we saw a big brown bird of prey yesterday fly right past us in the woods and we completly forgot about the camera and just stood there with our mouths open!