New kind of bird!

[solarbird]

What the hell is this?


Unexpected Bird

Pale grey back, breast, neck; more neutral, paler, and less brown than it looks like in this picture. Dark charcoal grey (almost black, but not quite; darker than in this picture) wings, head, tail, but with pale grey strikes over the eyes and what seemed to be some pale grey spots at the tail. Along the back of the neck, a vertical dark charcoal-grey stripe. The beak was closer to a flicker, but it was smaller than any flicker I've seen. NO other colour. It looked a lot like taking a three-toed woodpecker and separating out all the black and white sections into solid areas, removing all hint of striping or spotting except just at the tail.

Oh, and since I'm posting again already, our neighbour's house at night is apparently, Ladies and Gentlemen:


The Great State of Kentucky


Only Slightly Less Like Kentucky

Comments

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

The Great State of Kentucky

Too. Damn. Silly.

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

The Great State of Kentucky

Bwhahahaha!

[corivax.livejournal.com]

*cackles madly at work*

Kentucky is striking me as really, really funny.

[solarbird]

Kentucky is funny.

Just not always "ha ha" funny.

^_^

[gazerwolf.livejournal.com]

Kentucky ALWAYS strikes me as funny. 8->

[quen-elf.livejournal.com]

That is impressive. Impressively silly, maybe, but still :)

About your struggle to see the background - my dad took a series of these pictures a year or two back and used them on his christmas cards - they were generally much less tasteful (and on much smaller houses). Anyhow, he wrote an article about how to photograph them so that you can get both the house and the lights. The basic tips were:

a) take the picture when there's still some daylight.
b) use flash (assuming you have a separate, powerful flash unit that will reach to the house)

I think he also suggested taking two shots exposed differently using a tripod and overlaying them after a lot of screwing around in photoshop, but that sounds like far too much work :)

[solarbird]

Honestly, I think it's better off just being the Great State of Kentucky. ^_^

[cafiorello.livejournal.com]

What a hoot!

Cathy

[firni.livejournal.com]

Either a downy or a hairy woodpecker. Hard to tell size because I don't know how big that suet feeder is.

[solarbird]

This bird was smaller than a flicker; bigger than all the little brown birds and little grey birds and such that show up.

[firni.livejournal.com]

Still doesn't really narrow it down. Flickers are about 12" long, Hairy Woodpeckers are around 9", Downy Woodpeckers around 6.5". In comparison, the juncos (the ones with excecutioner caps) are about 6" and the towhees (the ones with red chests, black backs and red eyes) are about 8".

[firni.livejournal.com]

This might *possibly* be helpful if the inside suet holder is the same size as ours:

Downy Woodpecker on suet feeder (males have a red splash on the back of their heads, same with Hairy Woodpeckers):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/firni/1456183/in/set-378157/

Hairy Woodpecker on the same feeder:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/firni/1456249/in/set-378157/

I know it's hard to tell from the pictures, but Hairies also have longer beaks. The Downy guys have short little beaks. Once you figure out the size difference you'll be able to tell which one is on the feeder just by glancing out the window. Well, until breeding season, then it's "what the hell? is that a baby Hairy or a Downy?"

[solarbird]

The first one is kinda similar, but the one we saw had no red bit on the back of its head, and a lot fewer and smaller spots at the tail, with none on the wings at all.

The second one wants me to sign in and I don't have a flickr account. (hee flickr)

[firni.livejournal.com]

Fixed it so you don't have to log in to see it.

If it doesn't have red on the back of the head, then it's a female.

[solarbird]

Thanks. It looks more like the downy woodpecker, so if the spotting is variable and red is only on males, then, then yay, that's probably it. ^_^

[solarbird]

Oh! Also, I think it is the same size as yours. All the wire ones at the store we go to are the same size for the basic suet brick; I think it's standardised.

[firni.livejournal.com]

Wild Birds Unlimited has some MONDO HUGE suet feeders and the MONDO HUGE blocks of suet to go with them.

Expensive, natch. I can't remember if I've seen that size anywhere else.

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

Did you realize it was Kentucky as you took the picture, or only when you looked at it later?

[solarbird]

Immediately after I took it. I looked at the LCD display on the camera and went, "zomg Kentucky!"

In person, it didn't look like that, because eyes are better at handling the contrast than cameras are, and it looks like a house with a bunch of lights. Plus, you see in 3D, so you see that things that look flat in the picture are not flat in person, and so on.

Bird!

[sksouth.livejournal.com]

We're getting Downies not too far south from you - we see females more often.

-S.