Wednesday, October 29, 2008

MYSTERY BIRD IDENTIFIED!

Hooray! The Audubon Society of Seattle is awesome! Rachel emailed me this information about the mystery bird after I sent her the photos posted on October 25, 2008.

"The silhouette is that of a heron, and the bill, leg length, wing shape, and general proportions point to a Green Heron...(they are) mostly birds of freshwater habitats, and are uncommon summer residents of Western Washington...they are rather shy and secretive, and aren't birds you see every day, so you were lucky to have one fly over your yard."
Read more about this shy bird here.

I also sent her the picture below, which sealed the deal on the bird id.


The picture is fuzzy because I saw this funny little bird perched, ran like crazy to grab my camera, and snapped a shot mid-stride, just a second before the heron took off. One second there, the next, gone. So the question that sprung to mind was...
Was that the Green Heron or Green Hornet? And that got me to thinking about Halloween costumes and Halloween being just around the corner...and so it goes...that I plan a creepy, crawly garden post for that spooky day...

~Aerie-el
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6 comments:

  1. AnonymousOctober 31, 2008 at 9:52 AM

    Huh, never would have guessed that. Looked in my "Birds of the Puget Sound" book and it's in there under "rare in the region." Go figure! Glad you got to see it, and got an ID too!

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  2. Kit Aerie-elOctober 31, 2008 at 5:17 PM

    I tell ya, those folks at the Seattle Audubon Society are amazing at identifying birds.
    Living next to a riparian area, we're really lucky to see (and sometimes only hear) some way cool birds.
    Thanks again for stopping by! I'm headed over to your blog now...

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  3. Tui SniderNovember 2, 2008 at 4:27 PM

    I'm so excited to hear that your mystery bird was ID'd. How lovely to have been graced by the presence of one that mysterious bird.

    Those Audubon folks are probably like some airplane buffs I know: they can ID stuff from so little visual info.

    ~Tui

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  4. Tui SniderNovember 2, 2008 at 4:28 PM

    p.s. Hmmm... I'm off to look up the word "riparian" now! I certainly do envy your beautiful surroundings.

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  5. Kit Aerie-elNovember 2, 2008 at 4:47 PM

    Another time I called the Seattle Audubon Society office and did a poor imitation of a bird call I had heard, but not seen. They knew immediately it was the Swainson's thrush.

    http://www.birdweb.org/birdweb/bird_details.aspx?value=search&id=352

    Great website; fantastic, knowledgeable people at their Seattle location.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Kit Aerie-elNovember 2, 2008 at 4:54 PM

    In case you didn't find a good definition of 'riparian', here's a link to a short and sweet description:
    http://www.ecy.wa.gov/biblio/92br003.html

    ReplyDelete

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