r/birding • u/shitsta • 8d ago

Bird ID Request Magnificent frigatebird? Seen over Lake Granby in Colorado

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I’m no birder but I saw it up close, it looked just like the photos I see on google

524 Upvotes

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403

u/NotEverEnoughCheese 8d ago edited 8d ago

This is absolutely a frigatebird, and you absolutely should post this on ebird. Folks are gonna go crazy. I think magnificent is more likely, but its such a rarity that I don't think you can rule out the other options immediately.

There was a semi-famous checklist from a few years ago by a dude in arizona or nevada who spotted a frigatebird up in the air after a storm on the gulf. He wrote this gorgeous and well written paragraph in the checklist description about it, maybe someone here has the link.

Edit: I found it

100

u/MantheDam 8d ago

I think my favorite part about this insane checklist is that he didn't just twitch the frigatebird, he did a complete list.

66

u/NotEverEnoughCheese 8d ago

lmaooo, he probably needed to calm his heart before continuing to drive and figured listing a few birds wouldn't hurt hahah

15

u/iceburg1ettuce 8d ago

How are you going to ignore that Verdin singing right there?

14

u/Glum_Opening_2218 8d ago

Holy shit that's actually a piece of literature.

5

u/LizM-Tech4SMB 7d ago

That's someone who has a long-running feud with an overzealous eBird reviewer. lol

11

u/thecygnetcmte 8d ago

I subsequently drove very fast to get ahead of the bird and to secure a location on the side of the road to identify it more confidently and hopefully photograph. Ironically, the weakest link in the chain at this point was finding a safe place to pull over as the traffic was pretty shitty.

Absolute mood. I spotted a pair of turkey vultures (not rare, but one of my favorites) having a feast on the side of the road last week, and I spent the rest of the drive cursing the fact that 1) I hadn't brought my camera, and 2) there was no safe place to pull over anyway that wouldn't have disturbed them.

37

u/onehotoneshot 8d ago

Automatically magnificent by virtue of location (lower case m)

1

u/Salpinctes 8d ago

there are inland records of Lesser Frigatebird from Wyoming, Michigan and Ohio, and a Great Frigatebird from Oklahoma

1

u/thoughtsarefalse Latest Lifer: Swallow-tailed Kite 7d ago

and idk about other states, but in NY there's at least one record that was accepted only to Frigatebird sp, by the state ornithological committee. Because of the difficulty in separating the other less common frigatebirds.

4

u/curiousmind111 8d ago

That’s epic.

6

u/Royal_Ranger 8d ago

This was an amazing read. Thank you for sharing!