Posted by John Boyd on June 29, 2003 at 10:13:14:
In Reply to: Backyard Birding posted by Felipe on June 28, 2003 at 17:53:39:
: Hey John: I'll give you some details of the mystery bird but I suggest that it would be much better if you see it on a tv. It has a white collar around its neck. Small grayinsh spots on its neck to middle body. Yellowish undertail. Small and thin beak. Gray crown. Also it had a black stripe through its eye. Like a Black-Whiskered Vireo. Bu its not that. Even Alex doesen't know what it is. It looks like a Variegated Flycatcher. It lacks all the black strips on its belly. Please someone help! Thankyou
"Small and thin beak" makes it sound like some sort of warbler. The yellowish undertail could be a warbler, vireo, or flycatcher. However, the bills are quite different in these groups. Vireos will have a blunt bill, often relatively thick. Warbler bills are usually small, thin, and pointed. Flycatcher bills vary with the type of flycatcher, but only the Empidonax have small bills and these have relatively wide bases.
When it comes ID'ing an unknown bird, the first step is to try to figure out what family it belongs to. Overall structure is most important here: size and shape of the bird, tail length, bill size and shape, etc. Once we have down to one or a few families we focus on specific field marks.
Sibley's Birding Basics has a lot of information about what to look for. If you master it, you will have the tools you need to ID all sorts of puzzling birds (although still not all of them).
If it is a warbler, you might want to consider Orange-crowned (which can have a gray cap, eyeline, mottled breast, yellow undertail) or Cape May (which has a collar). These are both highly variable and are notorious for being birds that confuse birders! I remember a Cape May on the Christmas count a few years ago that had the whole group of us puzzled for about 5 minutes.
: Another bird me and Alex were trying to find out was a sparrow like bird. Heres the details: It has black-white black-white strips all over its body including the belly. It had a rufous color on its primary feather (small) It had a white stripe on the tip of its head. The tail is about 2 inches. It had two thick black stripes on the sides of its neck. I was spotted in NW of North Carolina in Maggie Valley. It was early spring. Still very cold there. It was close to the bushes and hoping around the grass and leaves.
What about Savannah Sparrow? They have a white median crown stripe, black streaking on the belly, prominent dark malar stripes (= lateral throat stripes) and can have rufous on the primaries. Moreover, their plumage is highly variable. Sometimes they don't look much like the pictures in the field guides. They can also look quite different from the Savannahs that typically winter here.