4 replies to this topic

[ladenso1]

I took this shot at Golders Hill Park on 22 July.

One expert British birder and photographer, who may, for all I know, be a member of this forum wasn't certain but suggested it might be a juvenile moorhen.

I've seen baby moorhens in Florida, tiny, black, fuzzy, and with the the red and yellow beaks of the adults. But when I looked on Google for shots of juveniles I did see one or two lacking that color in the beak.

Would certainly welcome anyone's thoughts on the identity of this bird.

(The utility for attaching files isn't working for me; maybe that's because it indicates I have used almost double my indicated quota--I don't know how to clear previous uploads, if that's possible. So I'm going to try the method of linking to a photo that was adopted on Whatbird around March 10 of this year. With great difficulty I did succeed in getting one shot onto the forum at that time. Hope this is the correct form of the link:

[JimBob]

A juvenile isn't what I would call a baby. . . It's full size, but not an adult. I could see this being a Common Moorhen.

[SuzanneO]

Do you have any other photos of this bird? The angle makes a few identification points difficult. This could be a young Eurasian Coot. The neck and breast seem too white for Common Moorhen and the Moorhen should show a white stripe on the flanks which I don't see--but that may be because the bird is nestled down too far to see it. A side view of the head might help, a standing positions showing the tail would really be good.
Sue

[Liam]

Do you have any other photos of this bird? The angle makes a few identification points difficult. This could be a young Eurasian Coot. The neck and breast seem too white for Common Moorhen and the Moorhen should show a white stripe on the flanks which I don't see--but that may be because the bird is nestled down too far to see it. A side view of the head might help, a standing positions showing the tail would really be good.
Sue

Juvenile coot was my thought as well.

[ladenso1]

Thanks very much for these replies. Unfortunately I didn't get any other shots of the bird--was with some non-birders and we were moving very rapidly.
Somehow, I missed the suggestion of a juvenile Eurasian coot. And even after I saw the images of a juvenile moorhen on the Web I didn't connect the dot to the idea that there's such a thing as a juvenile coot without the white bill.

But from another source I've now received a scan of a page from Sibley that shows the juvenile common moorhen and American coot, and I'm convinced the bird in that shot _is_ a juvenile coot. (All the other nests of that nature that I saw in London in July _were_ coots' nests).