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The white thing in Hillsborough
- To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: The white thing in Hillsborough
- From: Joshua Stuart Rose <jsr6@duke.edu>
- Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 12:15:28 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
Hi Carolinabirders,
Just back from Thanksgiving with the folks in Massachusetts. Was greeted
Thanksgiving morning by a Pileated Woodpecker in the yard. Managed to
sneak away from the family on Saturday to join my old friends and birding
mentors Bill and Barbara Drummond, who were leading a Brookline Bird Club
trip to Cape Ann. Highlights were a Greater Shearwater and two Pomarine
Jaegers flying over the ocean, plus a staked-out drake King Eider; a
previously reported Ash-throated Flycatcher didn't show, nor did a flock
of Common Redpolls. Other than that, we just saw the usual humdrum
everyday run-of-the-mill winter birds for coastal Massachusetts:
Harlequin Ducks, Common Eiders, Black Guillemots, Razorbills,
Thick-billed Murres, Black-legged Kittiwakes, Purple Sandpipers, a
Snow Bunting... Oh yeah, and one o' them Snowy Owls too...
Speaking of Snow Buntings, some of you may remember Olesia Kennedy's post
on November 16 about a possible Snow Bunting in her yard in Hillsborough,
NC (see
http://www.ibiblio.org/~pardo/birds/current/msg00871.html
to refresh your memory). She managed to photograph it and, at my request,
e-mailed the photos to me. Her bird is not in fact a Snow Bunting, but
instead appears to be a really strikingly pigmented White-throated
Sparrow! It is pure white on the tail and most of the body, but has brown
wings and back typical of a White-throat. It also has the White-throat's
bright yellow lore, and a dark grey smudge on the cheek, on an otherwise
pure white head. It's legs are pink; I can't quite figure out the bill
and eye color from the photos.
I still have the photos of this very attractive and unusual bird on my
computer. If anyone from the CBC or CHBC or whereever wants them for
their website, let me know, I have permission to pass them along.
Otherwise, I may get them up on my own site eventually. Other individual
birders who want to see the pictures, or the bird itself, contact Olesia at
OKennedy@BrinkerCapital.com
Good birding,
Josh
Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.)
jsr6@duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/