Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Need help with this bird ID

Eastern banded-tail ruff-back? Seems flightless--must be his belly full of black-oil sunflower seeds. (notice feeder rod BENT to ground!)


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9 comments:

Susan Gets Native said...

This rare specimen, the Banded-Tail Feeder-Pole-Bender
(Latin name stealus all my seedus) is a large flightless bird whose charms are lost on most people who feed birds.

nina at Nature Remains. said...

Love that Latin!

cestoady said...

I am afraid I must disagree with Susan's determination -- a logical mistake because of the bent feeder pole ( see photo).

If I am not mistaken -- and I hardly ever am --I would say that we have here an Eastern Banded -Tail Raycoot, which is closely related to the EBTRuff Back, but with less of a ruff . Becareful, It is not to be confused with other Coots such as The Old and American. Yes, it is indeed flightless as you have so astutely observed,(see photo).

According to Dr. Zygmutt von Vogelmiester, the EBTR usually reproduces in tree cavities,(see photo), a throwback to its early evolutionary history when it nested in trees like many other early birds. Over time,however, it has also become adapted to civilization and, according to Dr. Vogelmiester, it will occasionally nest and reproduce in chimneys, where it may feed on chimney swifts. To be sure, this latter point needs verification. Its primary food ,however, is the feeding station,upon which it preys, as your photos so nicely show.

While the adult EBTR can be seen in many parts of Ohio, it is not often you get a photo of a young individual (you can tell by the expressive expression on its face--see photo) preying on a feeding station --a rare photo indeed !!.

Larry said...

Gee-I thought it was A Raccoon-just when I thought I was learning
more about birds, I come up with a stumper like this one.

Susan Gets Native said...

Good Lord. I have been blown out of the water.
I thought I was being SOOOO clever!

Larry said...

You inspired clever comments

Mary said...

This was too much fun! LOL!

KGMom said...

This post and the comments gave me my daily dose of laughter.
Thanks all.

possumlady said...

Hi Nina, Great post! I have those rare flightless, banded whathaveyous here too. They eat up the dry cat food I keep on my porch and dig around the feeder for seeds and worms. I had three babies last year that I called the Tasmanian Devils because they went everywhere together and were constantly squawking and fighting with each other over bird seed. Got a little old hearing them in the middle of the night though!