Anyone good at distinguishing stocky, blue, sparrow-like birds in terrible photos?
Seen today in Tucson, AZ, USA, in terrible lighting and when I had neither my bins nor my field guide. I'm not cropping this photo because the definition is bad enough already and I unfortunately didn't think to try merlin until they were already gone. I saw a group of 5-10 of them moving between the ground and these low trees before they disappeared. All of them were about the size of an indigo bunting, but had reddish areas that varied in saturation between individuals. I thought the reddish area was on the belly, which makes me lean towards lazuli bunting, but the blue on most of them was super dark and saturated and this individual, the reddish area looked like it was on the wing, which makes me think blue grosbeak. None of them were singing and the calls they made weren't particularly distinctive.
Seen today in Tucson, AZ, USA, in terrible lighting and when I had neither my bins nor my field guide. I'm not cropping this photo because the definition is bad enough already and I unfortunately didn't think to try merlin until they were already gone. I saw a group of 5-10 of them moving between the ground and these low trees before they disappeared. All of them were about the size of an indigo bunting, but had reddish areas that varied in saturation between individuals. I thought the reddish area was on the belly, which makes me lean towards lazuli bunting, but the blue on most of them was super dark and saturated and this individual, the reddish area looked like it was on the wing, which makes me think blue grosbeak. None of them were singing and the calls they made weren't particularly distinctive.