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Thread: Need help on ID

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    Default Need help on ID

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    I need some help on the attached. Taken in Naples Florida in April.

    Thanks.

    Rich

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    Female grackle. regards~Bill

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    Thanks Bill.

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    Would the dark eyes and Flrida location make this a female Boat-tailed grackle?

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    There are three species of "grackles" in North America. Two are common in Florida- the Boat-tailed and Common. The Great-tailed is a western version of the Boat-tailed. They all have long tails although Common Grackle tails are proportionately not as long as the other two. The Common Grackle is the smallest of the three but size is difficult to tell in this image without anything to compare. The pale buffy colouration of this bird indicates a Boat-tailed Grackle- Common Grackles are never this light. The Florida race of this species has a dark eye so you nailed the ID Rick.

    Sorry to spend so much time on a grackle but I wanted to illustrate the process of IDing a bird species. There are various ways of doing it but once you have narrowed down to a particular group of birds (based on a host of features, size, bill type, shape, sound, colouration etc), often you then rely on distribution to produce a short list, then look for one or more features that are unique to a species to either further shorten the list or decide on the ID. If nothing in the short list ends up being a candidate, then you should look to species with a distribution outside your location. Once you get familiar with species you can ID based on overall look of the bird much the same as we recognise whole words when we read, rather than sound them out letter-by-letter.

    This last point is interesting when it comes to birds in the hand. When you have a bird in the hand, say after catching it in a trap to band/ring, it is curious to note that it is a lot more difficult to ID a bird in the hand than from a distance. In the hand it's hard to get an overall feel for what the bird is and you end up "reading" them letter-by-letter.

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    John,

    Thanks for spending so much time on this. The difficult part of the ID for me was dealing with the very light buff coloration in contrast to the more common rufus coloration. My primary reference is the Sibley which does not mention the lighter variant but I do have other references. I've also attached in contrast what I think is the more typical female Boat-tailed Grackle.

    Rich

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