[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Flycatcher, sparrow question, waterthrush answer, and murrelet



Hi Carolinabirders,

First and most important, Norm Budnitz and I - trying to assuage our 
disappointment at not seeing the murrelet yesterday - drove to Big Woods 
Road this afternoon. The Pacific-Slope Flycatcher was very cooperative, 
as were Shelley Theye and Chris Eley who showed us where to look for it. 
If anyone has moths in their closet or kitchen, you might want to catch 
them and bring them to Big Woods Road tomorrow, as the poor critter will 
have a hard time finding any flying insects to catch if tonight's weather 
proceeds as forecast...

Earlier in the day I had an interesting sparrow at my feeder. It had a 
Swamp Sparrow-like face, with a conspicuous gray eyebrow, white throat, 
and brown crown with gray stripe down the middle. However, it was heavily 
streaked underneath; almost too heavily, like a Song or Fox Sparrow. I 
also noted at the time that it had fairly bright buffy stripes just below 
the dark malar (moustache) stripes. I had been considering the bird a 
probable immature Swamp Sparrow, or maybe - given how heavily streaked it 
was- a Song-Swamp hybrid (a professor here at Duke does research 
cross-fostering the two species and having them learn to sing each 
others' songs). However, I just noticed that the buffy submustachial 
stripe is given as a field mark for Lincoln's Sparrow. Anyone know how 
reliable or diagnostic a field mark this is for Lincoln's? Does anyone 
have a copy of Jim Rising's sparrow book handy that they could check for 
me? Could a young Swampy show a buffy submalar stripe at this time of 
year?

I had just scattered millet around my yard the other day for the first 
time. If I keep seeing interesting visitors like this, I might just have 
to buy more millet...

Third, to answer Mary Douglass' question about which waterthrush is 
more likely in winter: CBC data from the Patuxent Bird Identification 
InfoCenter at http://www.mbr.nbs.gov/id/framlst/framlst.html shows 
Northern Waterthrush as occurring rarely in south Florida on CBCs. They 
don't even have a map for Louisiana Waterthrush. Based on this, I would 
have to guess that Northern is more likely to be around here in winter.

Lastly, I mentioned yesterday some uncertainty about exactly what time of 
day "late afternoon" meant in reference to posted Murrelet sightings from 
Fishing Creek Reservior. I thought I should share Pete Worthington's 
reply, which is that he had seen the murrelet between 12 noon and 1:30 
PM. While Norm and I started looking around 12:30 and failed to find the 
bird, anyone still planning to look for this critter should know that it 
has been seen at this time of day as well as later.

Good birding, and thanks,

Josh



Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Zoology

jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/