Hello and happy weekend!
If you’ve been following along you know I’ve been featuring some birds you may find visiting your backyard bird feeder. Let’s do another that you may have seen, especially for short periods of time in the spring and fall if you live in the southern United States, or, if you live in the central, or northeastern part of the US, you may see this bird all summer as it breeds there. You may be more familiar with its mate, (and more impressed when several of them show up together.)
Here are some photos.
If you want to guess, use the comment box below to identify this bird. Have you seen it at your feeder?
I think I’m going to go with finch, based on it’s beak…but I don’t know which species. Birds are not my strong suit.
Hey Megan, thanks for reading and commenting! It is not a finch, but good guess.
Hi, Sharon, Puzzler # 200 looks like it’s a female Rose-breasted Grosbeak.
****
No offense, Sharon, but I still maintain, based on the descriptions of the 2 species in the Nat’l Geogr. Fld Gde to the Birds of N. Am., which says the Downy Wdpkr’s outer tail feathers have faint(?) dark bars or spots, whereas the Hairy’s outer tail feathers are entirely white, as I have seen for a long time on the 2 species in this area. Please take a look at your photos, and see the spots on the outer tail feathers in the photos you have labelled as Hairy such as the last photo shown. The beaks also don’t look as long as the skulls of birds labelled Hairy. I’m a picophile, Sharon.
Murray, thank you for inspiring me to learn more! I appreciate your opinion and especially, that you challenged me to look more closely to see if perhaps I was wrong. I had not heard about those other clues for identifying the hairy from the downy and so spent some time reading about it today, and looking at photos. I think the bill is the giveaway on this one though and still go with the hairy. If you measure the bill and then hold it up to the top of the head, it is longer than half. The bill on a downy woodpecker is so much smaller that I just have to go with that as the more reliable identifying mark. I found the following information about the two woodpeckers from a site called The Spruce, it says about these two woodpeckers, “Markings: While these birds are almost identical in plumage, there are two subtle differences that can be detected. First, the downy woodpecker’s white outer tail feathers show some black barring or spotting, while the hairy woodpecker’s outer tail feathers are plain. Second, downy woodpeckers have a plain shoulder, while a black spur of color juts onto hairy woodpeckers’ shoulders toward the breast. Neither of these markings is very prominent and there can be geographic variations, but if seen distinctly they can help identify the bird’s species.” If you look at the top photo in the original post, you can see this black line that they are talking about, the black spur that juts into the shoulder towards the breast. It is not very bright or large, but I can see a small spur there. I think the photo in my post is just not very sharp and the tail feathers are not that clear. After all of that, I still go with hairy woodpecker…Thanks for reading! And taking the time to share your thoughts. I appreciate you Murray, and hope your day was a good one.
Oh, and your guess of female rose-breasted grosbeak is correct! I knew you would know.
The lady is a Rose Breasted Grosbeak. While you were pumping iron at the gym we had 4 males and two females on the feeder at once. I so wish they lived here!
4 males would be amazing to see! I too wished they lived here. They are beautiful birds! Thanks for reading.