Every month or so we sweep clean our main 10,000 Birds Clinic page and compile the questions and answers into a handy, bite-sized “round-up”.

Please feel free to add additional comments to the published answers - we’re all on the same learning curve round here - and if you’ve a question you’d like to put to the team please go to the Clinic Page.

Dead bird - from Janice, New Brunsick

Hi. I hope someone can help identify this bird I took pictures of today. I found it dead on my lawn in New Brunswick, Canada. I could not find it in my bird book. Its about 10 inches/25 cm from the end of the beak to the end of the tail feathers. Thanks!

• A: from Charlie

  Hi there,
  This is an ‘eastern’ Northern Flicker. The lovely yellow shafts to the flight and tail feathers are very typical of the species. It looks like it may well be recently-fledged: difficult to say how it died without looking at the corpse itself, but what a shame that it apparently managed to survive just long enough to leave the nest and get killed!
  All the best
  Charlie

Is this a mynah? - from Alex, UK

I bought a birds from a shop, according to them this is a mynah bird species, but from my research online i could find nothing similar than this. hope u can help me, identify this bird. it’s a clever bird supposedly could talk. thanks.

• A: from Charlie

  Alex
  This bird is a Eurasian Jay - a species of crow. You bought this bird in a shop? If so you’ve been conned as it’s illegal to sell wild birds, and I can’t imagine that this is NOT a wild bird that’s been taken from the wild (it has no rings that I can see). If this is a bird you’ve found and caged then you’re breaking the law.

  There is no chance whatsoever this bird will ever talk. Jays are not pets, they’re wild birds. They’re smart and intelligent, but they will not learn tricks and I repeat will NEVER be able to talk.

  You may not want to hear this, but I am very sad that you would buy a bird without knowing what species it is: how can you know what it needs to eat, what its habits are, where it came from, how long it might be expected to live etc etc? If you didn’t buy this but caught it and are hoping for advice, then the only advice I have for you is to let it go in the wild where you found it.

Is it worth taking binoculars to France? - from Wren, US

• A: from Charlie

  Hi wren

  I don’t know France at all, so I mailed my British Airways colleague (colleague and friend of course) Graham Langley, who has given a great answer: and in a nutshell - YES, definitely take your binoculars!!

  “In answer to the France question…

  First of all, its ALWAYS worth taking your binoculars! You’ll regret it if you don’t: Guaranteed.

  Paris is not the most birdwatcher friendly city for a north European being similar to the UK and Germany but a lot depends on where your contact comes from and which birds they have seen. If it were me I would assume I’d see all the regular UK birds like Woodpigeon, Chaffinch, Great Crested Grebe etc. But bear in mind the wagtails are the white [Motacilla alba alba] subspecies, the treecreepers are short-toed and the small yellow finches are serins. You might be tempted to search for Middle-spotted and Black woodpeckers but you’d be very lucky to find one. Bois de Vincenne in the east would be the best bet. Also remember to collect firecrest and crested tit here and check the skies for Honey Buzzard and Goshawk. Nightingales are common in northern France and Melodious Warbler should be possible but they won’t be singing now.

  By far the best place near Paris is the forest at Fontainbleau where there are in theory at least seven woodpeckers plus birds like Golden Oriole, Short-toed Eagle, Dartford Warbler Woodlark and Red-backed Shrike but its a huge area.

  As for Deauville its in a sandy coast just south of the Seine estuary so there are plenty of dunes and mudflats nearby. I don’t think its a migrant trap as its not a headland but Black Woodpecker, Serin, Woodlark, Whinchat, Crested Tit, Crested Lark and even Kentish Plover should be around plus many palearctic waders.

  looking on Google Earth Deauville is small, surrounded by patchy woods and a few slopes and has a small estuary. I suggest your enquirer checks out Google earth andmakes a few local explorations.

  Hope that helps”

  As Graham says, hope that helps! If I/we can do anything else for you, just let me know

Mystery bird in Utah - from Paula, Utah

Greetings Charlie,
Its Paula from Sandy Utah again. We found this injured bird in our back yard yesterday. My husband first thought it was a juvenile quail. This morning he was back, eating the seed my husband threw out for him yesterday. I was able to get within about 2 ft of him to get these pictures. He seems quite tame. The coloring is not like any quail I’ve seen and we have many quail visit our yard. Then I heard him call. It sounded more like some kind of a rooster, yet I’ve not heard that particular call before.

I’m sending several shots in hopes you can identify our new friend.
Thanks much.

• A: from Charlie

  Hi there Paula

  What you have here is a female Northern Bobwhite (presumably one of the western/Rocky Mountain forms). It is indeed a quail in all but name - but closer in size to Old World quails than the bigger quails you’re used to seeing. Males have very white cheeks and it’s the females that have the dingy/yellowish colouring. Given that you had a Chukar wandering around near you a month ago and now this I think it’s almost a racing certainty that someone in your neighbourhood is rearing “gamebirds” and has a large hole in their fence! It could be a wild bird but I’m afraid I don’t know the status of Nthn Bobs in your area. (If you find out though, I’d be interested to hear).

Can you ID this bird please? - from Guylaine, Montreal

I stumbled across your site and I was wondering if you could identify the bird in the pictures attached. The pictures were taken in Montreal, Canada in early May.

I did attempt to identify the bird with a couple of manuals and although some species look good, I was unable to determine which one was closest. In the past, armed with my trusty manual, I was always able to identify the type of bird, but this time, I am at a loss and this is really bugging me as this is the first time I can’t identify a bird. Thank you for your help.

• A: from Charlie

  Hi Guylaine

  Nice photos - I’ve just posted one of them, but they were all good! This is a Blue-headed Vireo Vireo solitarius (the eastern representative of the ‘Solitary Vireo’ complex).The combination of white spectacles, white throat, blue-grey head, and range rules out everything else (and I’m guessing that this was the species you were thinking of?).
  We’ve some photos on the blog at Blue-headed Vireo (though your photos are actually better than mine, there’s a little more info you might find useful).

Mystery bird - from Barbara, Georgia

I had never seen any birds like this. They were small (larger than a chickadee), slender bodies, sleek heads, a yellowish green color (maybe the color of key limes), no dark markings. There might have been a little darker variation of the color on their wings, but not much. I’ve looked at a lot of photos on the internet but nothing close. I wondered if they had been caged somewhere and escaped. Any ideas? Or do you know where I might search or see more photos?

• A: from Mike

  Barbara, I’m going to take a guess and predict that you saw juvenile Painted Buntings. While the adult male of the species may be one of the most beautiful, brightly-colored birds in the world, females and juveniles have a charm all their own. Unfortunately, painted buntings aren’t doing too well in Georgia these days.

Strange duck - from Bill, California

Found your site on the web. Friend of mine passed this photo to me. I thought it was a joke, but this mallard x lives in the Lake Merrit pond in downtown Oakland, CA. Apparently, there are a few of them. Photo was taken with a phone camera.

Any thoughts as to the cross? I said it was a mongrel mallard with bad hair. Another colleague, just informed me that it’s a faux mallard with a ‘fro.

• A: from Charlie

  Hi Bill
  Cracking bird! It’s hard to ever know exactly what a promiscuous duck like a Mallard has been doing at night, but this one’s parents look to be 100% Mallard to me - so not a hybrid with anything else. It’s actually a muddle of different breeds and not specifically one breed rather than another (as far as I can tell anyway). The bad hair is known in duck circles as a ‘crest’ (so I’ve been told) so your Mallard carries the mutation for a crest in his DNA (the green bill and curly uppertail coverts etc says it’s a ‘he’). The full (’voluptuous’, if you like that sort of thing) rear-end is possibly originally from a breed called an Orpington. I think that’s about the best I can do I’m afraid…
  I don’t think it would win any prizes at a breeder’s show, but I think he’s quite a looker really!
  Cheers

Gull ID please - from Philip, Buffalo

I’m just getting into birding. My family’s cottage is on the north shore of Lake Erie, about an hour from Buffalo. Our most common gulls are ring-billed, followed by herring. I saw these a few weekends ago while taking pictures of a visiting flock of 250-300 common terns and couldn’t really match them to anything in my books. I know herring gulls vary quite a bit, but these seem awfully dark, with the darkness heading into the breast area, and big. p1040168 (the bird is at center with wings spread) gives a good size comparison with geese and ring-billed. p1040175 shows a red spot on the subterminal(?) bill, and the eyes were also quite red.

“p1040175″

“p1040168″

Any help is appreciated.

• A: from Charlie

  Hi Philip. Gulls are pretty tough aren’t they? You’re absolutely right about the Ring-billeds and Herring Gulls, and the gulls you’re not sure of are all Great Black-backed Gulls (which you’re probably thinking?).
  The three in p1040175 are adults - note the massive size, deep chest, dark-pink legs, and of course the dark mantle (back). In p1040168 the flying bird is a 1st winter Great Black-back, as are the two white-headed, dark-billed gulls standing at the rear right of the flock. Great Black-backs take four years to reach adulthood, but young birds are distinctively large with obvious white heads. As they age more dark feathers appear on the mantle and the bill gradually turns yellowish with the pronounced red gonydeal spot you noticed. Hope that helps.

Bird ID please - from John, Kuwait

I was driving back from Kuwait City to Camp Buehring, through the desert, came across a bird in the tire tread rut. I didn’t have my camera with me so I couldn’t take a picture. It was such a beautiful bird I’m trying to find a picture of it online to show my wife. I can describe the bird maybe you can help find it. It was a slender bird almost like a large robin, and it was very bright turquoise in color. Any idea what this was?

• A: from Charlie

  Hi John. The bird that comes to mind is Little Green Bee-eater. Just as you describe it’s a slender, brilliantly-coloured species. They normally hawk insects form exposed perches, but many bee-eaters will fly down to the ground to take a prey item, and that’s probably what your bird (asssuming I’m right anyway!) was doing. I’ve a photo of one at the bottom of the page at http://10000birds.com/dubais-wimpey-pits.htm - it may help, but there are of course other photos on the net showing the upperparts more clearly

Bird ID please - from Carol, New Hampshire

i had a flock of birds in my yard this morning,i have never seen before. they looked bigger then a blue jay,brown body,black patch on the chest,some had a red spot on top of the head. the beak was a little long. when they fly, you can see white above the tail. i live in central n.h. and have never seen these type of birds before.if you have any idea what they are, i’d love to know. thank you

• A: from Corey

  Carol: You are describing Northern Flickers, a woodpecker that often is seen in flocks this time of year and is different from most woodpeckers in that it often feeds on the ground.