Identification Guides – BIRDS

Format: For the purpose of this exercise, we have adopted and adapted an earlier Audubon life-list format. The species listed therefore comprise 700+ North American species of which we have photographed about 200 species.  To that starting point we  will be adding a number of European, African, Caribbean and Mexican species which we have been happy to see and photograph. NOTE: We’ve called these sections “Identification Guides”. At this point in time, they aren’t, but might get to that level of detail over time.

Intent: These pages provide us with our own handy on-line reference to the many species of wildlife that we have photographed over the years and also acts as a list of the many, many species remaining to be photographed. With the advent of digital, it is a bit like starting a life-list of photographed birds all over again.

Some common North American birds are missing images. Don’t worry, we just haven’t uploaded them yet or haven’t photographed them digitally yet :-). This is a work in progress and we will be adding more images and links over time. The name of the bird is above the image. More spacing will be added to make this clearer later on but at the moment the spacing will be rather limited since I find it easier to find the correct spot in the html coding if there is limited spacing.

How it works: Clicking on the images will take you to the blog entry for the date and location of the image that we took.

I definitely don’t expect to ever see all of the species listed and I know that I will never have the joy of photographing all of them but, hopefully, the list and the accompanying images and blog entries are helpful or entertaining to others as they are to us – Ron

Page Breaks: Page breaks are primarily inserted to reduce loading time for individual sections.

LOONS  (Order Gaviiformes)
– Red-throated Loon (Gavia stellata)
– Arctic Loon (Gavia arctica)
– Pacific Loon (Gavia pacifica)
– Common Loon/Northern Diver (Gavia immer)
Northern Loon on the Mill Pond

Common Loon - Portsmouth, NH
– Yellow-billed Loon (Gavia Adamsi)

GREBES (Order Podicipediformes)
– Least Grebe (Tachybaptus dominicus)
– Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps)

Pied-Billed Grebe - Punta Cana 2009
– Horned Grebe (Podiceps auritus)
– Red-Necked Grebe (Podiceps grisegena)
– Eared Grebe (Podiceps nigricollis)
– Western Grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis)
– Clark’s Grebe (Aechmorphorus clarkii)

ALBATROSSES, FULMARS, PETRELS, and SHEARWATERS (Order Procellariiformes)
– Black-footed Albatross (Diomedia nigripes)
– Laysan Albatross (Diomedia immutabilis)
– Northern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis)
– Black-capped Petrel (Petrodroma hasitata)
– Bermuda Petrel (Pterodroma cahow)
– Murphy’s Petrel (Pterodroma ultima)
– Cory’s Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea)
– Flesh-footed Shearwater (Puffinus carneipes)
– Greater Shearwater (Puffinus gravis)
– Wedge-tailed Shearwater (Puffinus pacificus)
– Buller’s Shearwater (Puffinues bulleri)
– Sooty Shearwater (Puffinus griffeus)
– Short-tailed Shearwater (Puffinus tenuirostris)
– Manx Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus)
– Black-vented Shearwater (Puffinus opisthomelas)
– Townsend’s Shearwater (Puffinus auricularis)
– Audubon’s Shearwater (Puffinus lherminieri)
– Wilson’s Storm-Petrel (Oceanites ocianicus)
– Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel (Oceanodroma furcata)
– Leach’s Storm-Petrel (Oceanodroma leudorboa)
– Ashy Storm-Petrel (Oceanodroma homochroa)
– Band-rumped Storm-Petrel (Oceanodroma castro)
– Black Storm-Petrel (Oceanodroma melania)

TROPICBIRDS, BOOBIES, GANNETS, PELICANS, CORMORANTS, ANHINGAS & FRIGATEBIRDS (Order Pelicaniformes)
– White-tailed Tropicbird (Phaeton lepturus)
– Red-billed Tropicbird (Phaeton aethereus)
– Masked Booby (Sula dactylatra)
– Blue-footed Booby (Sula nebouxii)
– Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster)
– Red-footed Booby (Sula sula)
– Northern Gannet (Morus bassamus)
– American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos)
– Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis)
Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis)
– Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo)
– Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus)
Double-Crested-Cormorant

Juvenile Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus)
– Neotropic Cormorant (Phalacrocorax brasilianus)
– Brandt’s Cormorant (Phalacrocorax penicillatus)
– Pelagic Cormorant (Phalacrocorax pelagicus)
– Red-faced Cormorant (Phalacrocorax urile)
– Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga)


Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga)

– Magnificent Frigatebird (Fregata magnificens)

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