The post whore thread.

[Irving]

Chick.N did you shoot the Dumont/Clear Creek IDPA match today?

[ChickNorris]

Chick.N did you shoot the Dumont/Clear Creek IDPA match today?

No. I had other commitments.

[whitewalrus]

Hummer, what is a bird that is the size of a hawk that is dramatically brown and white? I want to say a brown body with mostly white wings and maybe brown wing tips? Don't hold me to that description as it caught my eye as it flew by. I've never seen anything like it. It reminded me of a piebald elk.

Cooper?s hawk maybe? They are brown and white.

[Irving]

Those are more mixed coloration. I mean like in the white section, there is no brown, and vice versa. When I referenced a piebald elk, this is kind of what was in my head.

[Hummer]

Hummer, what is a bird that is the size of a hawk that is dramatically brown and white? I want to say a brown body with mostly white wings and maybe brown wing tips? Don't hold me to that description as it caught my eye as it flew by. I've never seen anything like it. It reminded me of a piebald elk.

I'm afraid there's not nearly enough detail in the description to hazard a guess beyond the suggestion that if it looked like a hawk it probably was. Location and habitat are also clues. Whitewalrus' Cooper's is a possible but their wings are more mottled or spotted with white, not mostly white. Some birds have leucistic plumage characteristics but that's variance well beyond the detail of your description.

I frequently get rare bird ID questions and a picture is worth a thousand words. It often requires lots of pics of various features from different angles for a positive ID because some pictures do lie. Even detailed descriptions by experienced birders can be wrong due to what they thought they saw but didn't really. You have to wade beyond subjectivity.

Today we saw a Loggerhead Shrike and the first migrant Rufous Hummingbird at our Palisade home. Gambel's Quail too, but they're here every day.

[Irving]

I figured it was a long shot. I'm familiar with many of the birds I see in my neighborhood, but this guy was big and weird looking. I wished he stuck around so I could get better pictures. Even if I had a camera in my hand it all happened too fast, but it does make me think of how worthless cell phone are for taking quick pictures on the fly.

[Hummer]

Sorry Irving. A very good place to start is with Sibley's: https://www.amazon.com/Sibley-Guide-.../dp/030795790X

[Irving]

It was probably just a pigeon like this.




While we're talking about birds though, the first time I've ever seen a turkey vulture was last year in Texas. Now I feel like I see them all the time in the mountains here, and even up in Cheyenne (Curt Gowdy National Park). Have they always been up here and I've just never noticed before?

[Hummer]

The pigeon is probably a good guess. And Turkey Vultures are common throughout CO from spring through fall. I see them everyday. That the thing about learning the birds you discover, you actually start seeing them. There are lots of realms of awareness. Like bird songs and calls. For most people it's just background noise. For me it's a Kestrel fledgling getting fed, a quail chick that's lost it's family group, or a Ruby-crowned Kinglet mobbing a predator. I don't have to see it, only listen and hear.

[Irving]

I wish I were more familiar with game birds. I might have heard a quail, but I doubt I've ever seen one. I hear about people hunting grouse while they're elk/deer hunting, but I don't think I've ever heard/seen one of those either.

I just recently found out that those large flocks of very large, and very loud (but high in altitude so they are barely audible) birds I see over my land up in Pawnee in the fall are probably Sandhill Cranes.