Expert: Julia Booth - 8/20/2008

Question
QUESTION: Sitting on my patio in Michigan late this afternoon, I was lucky enough to see several birds of the same kind flying in a widespread group.  I saw only the underside--red/orange or rust belly.  On the underside of the wings were two large, solid white circles--one on each wing.  Since they were high in the sky and moving quickly, I caught no other marks. Thanks so much for volunteering your time.

ANSWER: Okay, nothing coming to me immediately, even after going through two of my field guides and checking several sites. So I need to ask you a few questions.

How many birds were there? You can approximate. 1-5, 5-10, more than a dozen.

Were they flying overhead in a straight line or were they circling?

Were they flapping their wings often or just soaring?

Were they flying in a disorganized group or were they in some sort of formation -like a V-shape?

How high up were they? Were they low enough that you could make out details, or was it more like just their silhouette? Est. 25 feet, 50 feet, 100 feet.

How large were they? Sparrow sized, crow sized, hawk sized.

How large was their wingspan?

Did they make any noise at all?

Do you live near one of the lakes?

If you had to guess, would you say the bird might have been a bird of prey (hawk, falcon etc) or a shore bird (pelican, tern, heron)

Answer as many of these as you can and we will go from there. If you don't know the answer, don't guess. I only want to know what you're sure of.

Julia

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: 1. 20 birds
2. Flying overhead in a straight line
3. Flapping their wings
4. Disorganized group
300-400 feet high, but I could see the rust/orange         breast and large, solid white circles under each wing
5. Crow sized
6. As wide as a crow's wing span
7. No noise that we could hear
8. Yes, we live near Lake Michigan--10 miles from Grand Traverse West Bay and 30 miles from Lake Michigan
9. Guess--a shore bird.

We see and identify many birds around and above our ten acres, but this is the first time we have seen this bird.  At least, we think it is the first time. We haven't tried to identify a bird only from the underside. Thanks so much.

Answer
Okay, I spent a lot of time on this. I went through all of my field guides, the checklist for the state of Michigan and a few websites. But I know of no one bird that meets all of those descriptions -especially the white circle part. So I'm thinking that there's a discrepancy between what you actually saw and how you're explaining it to me -in other words, a difference in perception of terminology.

Some of my guesses are perhaps a kind of Rail, Mergenser, Widgeon, Dowitcher or Teal. Those are the closest to your description.

Only you really know what you "saw" and I can only make guesses based on what you're telling me. I've found that often, people who aren't experienced birders will describe something to me and what I'm picturing, based on my experience and based on their description, isn't anything like what they actually "saw" -so I'm directing you to a website with an extensive search engine designed to ID birds.

You can imput all sorts of data, location, size, color, etc. Then the site will search for you based on that. You can even scroll through images of birds and it will give you a list of ones that are similar in appearance.

http://identify.whatbird.com/mwg/_/0/attrs.aspx

Please let me know what you learn from your search. I'm actually curious now, myself. And sorry. It pains me to admit defeat. But I really have no idea.

Julia