Mystery Bird: Brown Noddy, Anous stolidus

noddy tern!

Anous stolidus

Am I the only one who thinks that noddies look sort of like you crossed a tern with a pigeon?

I think it's a Brown Noddy. The bill doesn't look as long as a Black Noddy's bill should. The tail, while falling even with the tail tip (a Black Noddy characteristic), appears to be abraded. Brown Noddy has a tail which extends beyond the folded wings at rest.

On the other hand, appearances could be deceiving.
:-)

LOL @ Jana: my first thought on looking at this was, "That's a heckuva beak on a dove!"

But looking at some Noddy pictures, it seems really hard for me to tell them apart.

A white dove that's been flying a bit too high over Europe.

study the beak length carefully ..

Brown Noddy

Yes, study the bill length really carefully. :-)

Lol @ #7.

Hi, at http://joefuhrmanphoto.com/Midway-1.htm, this very photograph is identified as a Black Noddy!

rob: you are correct. but when i downloaded the picture, it was IDd as a brown noddy. after spending some time looking at photographs, i decided i couldn't be sure (from that one image) if it was a black or brown noddy, but since some experts don't recognize black noddy as a separate species (they think it is a subspecies of brown noddy), i decided that brown noddy was a safer choice in this case.

but of course, i am happy to entertain anyone's difference of ID for this image (size is difficult to ascertain, so we are left with beak length and color), so please do give me a reason to name this a black noddy.

>some experts don't recognize black noddy as a separate species (they think it is a subspecies of brown noddy)

Hi GrrlSci, do you have a reference for that? I've never heard of Black and Brown Noddy being considered a single species. They coexist over a wide range.

I initially thought this bird was a Black Noddy, as I outlined above. But then I looked at some online photos and posted (#4) that it was a Brown Noddy (though my post looks a little garbled now). After I posted, I went in search of that photo, and found it, so I made post #5. This photo appears browner (if I recall correctly) than most of the the others at http://joefuhrmanphoto.com/Midway-1.htm, but the bill looks similar and I have decided that the tail is not abraded.

So, I now say Black Noddy because the unabraded tail falls even with the tips of the folded wings, and the bill looks as long as the other Black Noddys (Noddies?) on the Midway-1 page, allowing for the head being turned toward the camera.