Birding Bloopers #8
Here is another birding blooper – a misidentification of an object thought to be a bird. This one comes from ‘Anonymous’, an Australian birder on a visit to South Africa.
My worst moment came whilst on a twitchathon in South Africa, I called a White Stork soaring in the thermals above the car……turned out to be a hang-glider!
I would have though that the size and shape would have given it away, but then I’ve been fooled by thinking a banana skin was a Golden Whistler dead on the road (click here).
Thanks to the birder from the Birding-Aus forum who gave permission to use this blooper.
For more in this series click here.
Question for readers:
When did you experience an embarrassing birding moment? Perhaps it was a mistaken identification. Perhaps you didn’t look carefully enough and were later proved wrong. Maybe the bird itself fooled you in some way.
I invite readers to submit their birding bloopers in the comments section below. If it’s good enough I might just feature it in a post of its own, with a link back to your blog (if you have one).
I have too many to list but I’ll happily pass on someone else’s birding blooper.
We were at Phillip Island in Victoria, watching seabirds from the cliffs on the ocean side. I was looking out to sea, my friend was looking back at the muttonbird colony.
She nudged me and said, ‘What bird is that?’
I trained my binoculars on the object that was emerging from behind the bushes.
It was the rescue helicopter.
Was it coming to rescue you from your embarrassment?
I’m still trying to work out how she mistook it for a bird. Apart from the shape and size, it was also red and yellow.
Ah – it was the colour that confused her.
Still – shape, size, behaviour all point to a non-bird type ID but I wonder if the combination of colour and sound was enough to throw her completely off course.