Re: [Birding-Aus] [canberrabirds] Why are the C. Sparrowhawk & B. Goshawk so similar?

[David Adams <>]

> One minor point (I am also a Northern Hemispherian): Which birds are so

> difficult to identify in Europe and North America? Apart from maybe some

> Empidonax in North America and maybe some Phylloscopus, Acrocephalus and

> Hippolais in Eurasia/Africa I can't think of many species that are that hard

> to ID there. "Hard" birds are certainly not the norm there.

Fair comment. I guess confusing is in the eye of the beholder ;-) Empidonax are hard, for sure...I'd list some of the other tyrants as tough, depending on how far afield you go. Apart from hawks, terns, gulls, pelagic species, and shorebirds, I'd also say that in the New World there are hard pairs of hummingbirds, alcids, flycatchers, ducks (e.g. Scaup), some of the New World blackbirds, and New World warblers. And vireos...and plenty of young/female tanagers. And sparrows...and finches. It's fair to say that corvids are probably harder here. (Unless you accept that they should all be lumped into C. indistinctus, as proposed last year...)  Even some of the loons Old World warblers are tough in Europe.