Birders' Nest

[Elgarian Redux]

What an adorable borb!!! I love him!!! What a lovely shot!!! (Your little Panasonic does excellent work for/with you!!)

Thank you! (Such is my ignorance of birder talk that I had to look up the word 'borb'!)

[Kalevala]

I scarcely know how to reply to this, K. I've already told you I'm not interested enough in photography to learn more about it. It's not a question of money, but one of interest. I'm interested in wildlife, in recording what I've seen so I can ID it and/or remember that I've seen it. I'm not a photographer, and I do not aspire to be one. I know plenty of photographers, admire their work, but do not aspire to do what they do.

Apologies.  Enjoy your photos and lists as they are. 

K

[Kalevala]

This little chap called in the garden today. (We see him quite a lot.)

That's your robin!  It's very cute and very different from ours (in the States).    We have a gazillion on them in my area.  Are they very prevalent in your area of the UK?

K

[owlice]

Apologies.  Enjoy your photos and lists as they are. 

K

No apologies needed, K, truly (though thank you for offering them)! I found the post confusing in light of what I'd already posted, is all.

I don't know what lists you mean (I don't keep a life list; I'm far too lazy to do so!), and yes, I'll enjoy the photos as they are; thanks!

[Kalevala]

No apologies needed, K, truly (though thank you for offering them)! I found the post confusing in light of what I'd already posted, is all.

I don't know what lists you mean (I don't keep a life list; I'm far too lazy to do so!), and yes, I'll enjoy the photos as they are; thanks!

O.k., now I'm confused (LOL).  You had mentioned about taking the photos to remember that you've seen the various birds.  How do you know whether or not you've seen them before?  Do you type in the name (Latin?) of the bird that you've recently seen into a search engine in your photos area to see if it pops up?  Do you add any tags?

A friend gave me a pair of binoculars recently (which he got from another friend).  They're a bit on the heavy side, but they are much better than the ones that I had been using before.  Slowly making progress! 

K

[owlice]

Thank you! (Such is my ignorance of birder talk that I had to look up the word 'borb'!)

Birbs, borbs, and floofs; enjoy! 

[owlice]

O.k., now I'm confused (LOL).  You had mentioned about taking the photos to remember that you've seen the various birds.  How do you know whether or not you've seen them before?  Do you type in the name (Latin?) of the bird that you've recently seen into a search engine in your photos area to see if it pops up?  Do you add any tags?

A friend gave me a pair of binoculars recently (which he got from another friend).  They're a bit on the heavy side, but they are much better than the ones that I had been using before.  Slowly making progress! 

K

Confusion reigns!! 

First, congrats on the new binoculars!! That's great!!

Why does anyone take photos of anything? Many times, it's to remember an outing or event, a beautiful location, people, a trip, etc. One visits a city and takes photos of its buildings and/or art and/or events. One visits the country and takes photos of mountains, valleys, lakes, snow, beach.

Mauna Kea

I want to remember what I do on my outings, and what I see.

Great Allegheny Passage

It's the same with birds, with wildlife, but there, I have extra tools I can use. I put a lot of my observations (whether of birds, mammals, plants, etc.) on iNaturalist, in large part to ID them or confirm an ID. (Making the observations public is also useful to others.) Often if I want to look at what wildlife I saw somewhere, I use iNat.

That said, I do tag my photos¹, too, with keywords so I can search them. I don't use the Latin; if I want that, I can go to iNat for it. The Mac Photos software lets me search by keyword, location, date, media type, event, etc.; I can also create albums within the software.

Oh, this is long! Sorry... I guess I should have just said, "Almost!" and "Yes!" to questions 2 and 3, respectively!


¹... eventually. I have an unwritten rule that I have to tag all the wildlife photos taken in a country before I return to that continent...

[Elgarian Redux]

Birbs, borbs, and floofs; enjoy! 

I remember in a previous post you once used the word 'birb', Owlice - and I thought it was a typo!

So now you invite me to go down the rabbithole of bird-slangology. I know you meant well, goodness knows I do. But you could have pointed me to something easy like the Schrodinger wave equation, or General Relativity, or the later philosophy of Wittgenstein. Instead you gave me the hard one. How to tell a birb from a borb or a floof.

I did go a little way down the tunnels you offered, then hastily withdrew from contact to preserve my sanity.


The birbfloof borblers lament

How to tell a birb from a bird?
It's the weirdest kind of thing I've ever heard.
It drives me kind of crazy. When I climb down from the roof,
I'll try to tell a borb from a floof.

[Elgarian Redux]

That's your robin!  It's very cute and very different from ours (in the States).    We have a gazillion on them in my area.  Are they very prevalent in your area of the UK?

K

Well they seem to be everywhere around here, but they're very territorial, aren't they? So I guess the robins I see repeatedly in our garden are actually just one robin. Whatever the actual count, however, it's an easy bird to find pretty much anywhere I go.

[Elgarian Redux]

Mauna Kea

Lovely shot. And slightly spooky. The immediate foreground looks very like the surface of Mars, and momentarily the observatories look 'otherworldly' as a result. Colour the sky differently and you're there.

[Iota]

That's your robin!  It's very cute and very different from ours (in the States).    We have a gazillion on them in my area.  Are they very prevalent in your area of the UK?

K

Interesting, until reading this post I had no idea American robins were any different to ours! Another blithe false assumption crossed off the list, probably only about two million left to go.

Lovely shot. And slightly spooky. The immediate foreground looks very like the surface of Mars, and momentarily the observatories look 'otherworldly' as a result. Colour the sky differently and you're there.

Very true! 

[owlice]

Interesting, until reading this post I had no idea American robins were any different to ours! Another blithe false assumption crossed off the list, probably only about two million left to go.

U.S. robins are thrushes; they were called "robins" likely because of the sort of similar coloring to U.K. robins.


European Robin (Erithacus rubecula)


American Robin (Turdus migratorius)

Once you know American Robins, it's pretty easy to recognize its cousins elsewhere:

Costa Rica

Clay-colored Thrush (Turdus grayi); Costa Rica's national bird

Spain

Eurasian Blackbird (Turdus merula)
Will return to this bird later...

Kenya

Abyssinian Thrush (Turdus abyssinicus)

Switzerland

Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris)

South Africa

Olive Thrush (Turdus olivaceus)

Zimbabwe

Kurrichane Thrush (Turdus libonyana)

There are others, but I'm going to stop now...

[owlice]

I remember in a previous post you once used the word 'birb', Owlice - and I thought it was a typo!

So now you invite me to go down the rabbithole of bird-slangology. I know you meant well, goodness knows I do. But you could have pointed me to something easy like the Schrodinger wave equation, or General Relativity, or the later philosophy of Wittgenstein. Instead you gave me the hard one. How to tell a birb from a borb or a floof.

I did go a little way down the tunnels you offered, then hastily withdrew from contact to preserve my sanity.


The birbfloof borblers lament

How to tell a birb from a bird?
It's the weirdest kind of thing I've ever heard.
It drives me kind of crazy. When I climb down from the roof,
I'l try to tell a borb from a floof.

hahhaahaha, that's great!!

There's a lot of slang around animals: kittah for cat, murder mittens for cat's paw/claws, nope rope for snake, and now my calendar reminds me that I have a meeting (WHAT?! Dang it; I thought today was meeting-free!)....

[Elgarian Redux]

U.S. robins are thrushes; they were called "robins" likely because of the sort of similar coloring to U.K. robins.


European Robin (Erithacus rubecula)


American Robin (Turdus migratorius)

Once you know American Robins, it's pretty easy to recognize its cousins elsewhere:

Costa Rica

Clay-colored Thrush (Turdus grayi); Costa Rica's national bird

Spain

Eurasian Blackbird (Turdus merula)
Will return to this bird later...

Kenya

Abyssinian Thrush (Turdus abyssinicus)

Switzerland

Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris)

South Africa

Olive Thrush (Turdus olivaceus)

Zimbabwe

Kurrichane Thrush (Turdus libonyana)

There are others, but I'm going to stop now...

Quite astonishing. I had no idea that American robins are not, in fact, robins, but a different species. And your photos show so clearly the non-robin resemblances and the thrush likenesses.

If I were formulating a method of bird nomenclature, I don't think I'd start from here ...

[Karl Henning]

Quite astonishing. I had no idea that American robins are not, in fact, robins, but a different species. And your photos show so clearly the non-robin resemblances and the thrush likenesses.

If I were formulating a method of bird nomenclature, I don't think I'd start from here ...

As genus names go, there may be few so unfortunate as Turdus.

[Iota]

U.S. robins are thrushes; they were called "robins" likely because of the sort of similar coloring to U.K. robins.


European Robin (Erithacus rubecula)


American Robin (Turdus migratorius)

Once you know American Robins, it's pretty easy to recognize its cousins elsewhere:

Costa Rica

Clay-colored Thrush (Turdus grayi); Costa Rica's national bird

Spain

Eurasian Blackbird (Turdus merula)
Will return to this bird later...

Kenya

Abyssinian Thrush (Turdus abyssinicus)

Switzerland

Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris)

South Africa

Olive Thrush (Turdus olivaceus)

Zimbabwe

Kurrichane Thrush (Turdus libonyana)

There are others, but I'm going to stop now...

Not lacking in relations then! The Swiss cousin is a very dapper looking character, and I rather like the look of the Zimbabwean one too. Strangely the Eurasian Blackbird is the one that most resembles a robin to me, just one covered in soot. But perhaps the strangeness lies in my thinking that ..

[Iota]

As genus names go, there may be few so unfortunate as Turdus.

Haha, exactly what I thought, but was not bold enough to say ..

[Elgarian Redux]

As genus names go, there may be few so unfortunate as Turdus.

Oh Karl, Karl, we were all trying so hard not to comment on that. As you see above, @Iota, too, was struggling. We try to raise ourselves from the mire, only to tumble back down. What @owlice will think when she sees this, I can't imagine ...

Quickly now, let's all get back to floofs and birbs and boobs.

[Karl Henning]

Oh Karl, Karl, we were all trying so hard not to comment on that. As you see above, Iota, too, was struggling.

For weighing the Birding thread down to the fertile earth, I am in deserved disgrace, I can only hope that @owlice will commute my sentence.

[Elgarian Redux]

For weighing the Birding thread down to the fertile earth, I am in deserved disgrace, I can only hope that @owlice will commute my sentence.

I, for one, will speak in your favour, old chap. It was only a momentary aberration. We understand.