re: Identify this songbird

Could be right. I wish the dude would show back up on this thread and rule it in or out. Ibird has a whole mess of birds that would work but that one just kinda clicked for me.

Yes. But it's gonna be just enough to make you realize you need the whole thing.

They update it regularly. The developers plan to own the bird app market. Not familiar with the others but it would be hard to top this in my opinion. The search feature is just badass.

I have iBird Pro.

Got about a thousand birds and updates regularly.

Pretty big on the phone but it's worth it if this is shite you want. Like I said, it's better than all my bird books combined by a long shot.

I appreciate yall's response. My reference is George Lowrery's Louisiana Birds.

The birds were observed in Lake Charles. The male did have some areas of white on the face and they both have brownish upper bodies and lighter bellies.
The beaks look to be light yellow. I could not see an eye ring. At this point we have eliminated all of your suggestions except for the Indigo Bunting (mottled plumage).
We will look again for them this afternoon. Thanks again.

I bought a cheap plastic feeder and filled it up with a "southeastern mix" the birds had eaten half of it in a couple days. By the third day the squirrels had destroyed it and gotten all the seed out.

quote:

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I am trying to convince my wife that I need the 70-200mm lens, but $2400 is a steep battle…

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Edited - I missed "Nikon D90" so this advice is pretty useless. It's a great lens for anyone with a Canon body, though:

Take a look at the Canon 100-400MM zoom. It's "only" around $1,500 and is a very good quality lens. A lot of birder and wildlife photographers use it and it's the one I settled on as well. Some of the shots I've gotten with it include the Northern Parula earlier and:

Very impressive pics.

Thanks for the I bird tip! I live on Poverty Pt lake and see a ton of birds. I' ve been using Petersons Birds of Texas and a large edition of Audubon's illustrations. Also found a Davis' s Birds of Mexico and Central America. Local library was giving away books and there it was. The Peterson is one I bought for George Lowery's ornithology class at LSU about 1970 or so. I have life list of about 200 birds I have identified. Last bird last year was a willet feeding in my yard in a rainstorm.

I am far from a birder, and don't see myself traveling to watch or photo birds but if I am somewhere I want the ability to capture what I am seeing. That new lens will just upgrade the glass that I have now.

Where I live on the water we get a lot of different birds and we gave my son a bird feeder for easter and there have been a ton of new birds since that was installed. My home office overlooks the water and I see new stuff all the time. Just yesterday I was on the phone and looked down in the lily pads and there was a bunch of baby ducks about a week old that I was seeing for the first time.

I bought Lightroom last year and am slowly learning that. It has made a huge difference in output of my photos. I didn't understand how well a good camera and software paired together until I started playing with it...

Several excellent bird ID books have come out in the last 15 years. The gold standard for birders tends to be:



It's pretty large and heavy so there are Eastern and Western versions that make better references to carry in the field. Sibley illustrates the birds in a wide variety of plummages and it's really a well done book.

One that got overshadowed by Sibley but is still very good is:



It is based on photographs that have been edited to highlight the key features to look for.

On a long birding trip I bring both books.