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David Sibley

Distinguishing female Barrow’s and Common Goldeneyes

minor updates 2 Mar 2010 Identifying female goldeneyes is extremely challenging. Differences are subtle, subjective, and inconsistent, but experienced observers still build up a “template” of expected impressions that allow them to identify the species with confidence. Describing these differences, and identifying individual birds from photos, can be very challenging because the process of identification

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Updates

I’m back to the website after a long holiday break, and I have a few things I’ll be posting over the next two weeks. For now, important news to report is that my seminar at the Yale School of Forestry has been postponed. Originally scheduled for Jan 20th, it will hopefully be rescheduled for the

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Kingbirds, nightjars, and the perception of bird sounds

In a recent post on his excellent blog Earbirding, Nathan Pieplow points out an issue with the voice description of Buff-collared Nightjar in the Sibley Guide to Birds, which says: Song of rapid, sharp, dry chips in crescendoing series tup to to tu tu ti ti trridip accelerating and rising to flourish at end; pattern similar to

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