Tony
Trad climber
Pt. Richmond, CA
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Jan 20, 2013 - 03:32pm PT
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Regarding dee ee's sapsucker, all three (RN, RB, YB) have yellow on the underparts. They used to be considered a single species, Yellow-bellied. If it is a first-year bird, Yellow-belled are slower to develop adult-type plumage. According to the paper I cited earlier (http://www.paradisebirding.com/picidae/HybridSapsuckers.pdf), field guides fail to convey the complexity. I was forced to wade through this when we found a likely hybrid in Christmas count a couple of years ago.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Jan 20, 2013 - 03:36pm PT
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Good stuff Tony. I haven't read that link thoroughly yet. Crud is preventing that concentration. So is it that he seems to be developing slowly that makes you lean red-naped mostly? The lack of full malar stripe had me wondering red-naped.
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Ron Anderson
Trad climber
Soon to be Nipple suckling Liberal
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Jan 20, 2013 - 04:57pm PT
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i go back to my original guess-- ist year red naped..;-D
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Tony
Trad climber
Pt. Richmond, CA
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Jan 21, 2013 - 11:31pm PT
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Crimpie,
For first -year Yellow-bellied, I was referring to brownish color in the head well into winter. I have only seen juvenile Red-breasted, but here is an example of a juvenile Yellow-bellied taken in lat eFeb (not mine)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13237694@N00/6933115435/sizes/l/in/photostream/
I think dee-ee's is a female Red-naped judging from the white chin.
I concur that we need Willoughby to keep us honest.
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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Jan 22, 2013 - 06:48am PT
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nice shots tony
I'm in india for a few days.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Jan 22, 2013 - 07:05am PT
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Thanks Tony. I learn so much from you guys. I can read all day, yet a quick conversation offers 10 times more information. I'll see if I can coax Willoughby back to offer more Sapsucker tips. I guess it's no coincidence that the Cornell birding team of greats calls themselves the Sapsuckers!
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Slater
Trad climber
Central Coast
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Jan 22, 2013 - 08:36am PT
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Hey, anyone got that Duckumentary link?
I went to PBS to show it to my students and the stupid PBS webpage has it but it won't play, there is not "play" button.
dumb
I got my students all psyched for it!
There is a 1 minute short on youtube... but not the same.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Jan 22, 2013 - 09:59am PT
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Beautiful shots (as usual) Tony. I'm anxious to see the duckumentary link. I'd not heard of it before. I sent an email to Willoughby - maybe he'll come on by here.
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Ron Anderson
Trad climber
Soon to be Nipple suckling Liberal
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Jan 22, 2013 - 10:13am PT
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sometimes they are like attempting an id of flycatchers lol!
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Jan 22, 2013 - 10:41am PT
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Or shorebirds for me. All birds within a mile of water are "peeps". :)
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Ron Anderson
Trad climber
Soon to be Nipple suckling Liberal
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Jan 22, 2013 - 10:43am PT
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peeps,, and dickie birds lol! On the subject of hybrids,, ive only had the occasion to confirm a few amongst the song bird variety.. Most difficult at times.. The last one i mounted was a grackle blackbird hybrid.
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Jan 22, 2013 - 11:12am PT
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I see nothing to suggest Dee ee's bird isn't a pure (or pure enough) Red-naped. In truth, most of my experience with hybrids is Red-naped x Red-breasted. There's a broad zone of hybridization (you can find lots of mixed pairs and hybrids around Mono Lake), so there's lots and lots of them out there, but they're also pretty easy to pick out. But with these two...
I don't know how little red on the nape it would take to make it a hybrid, or even a pure Yellow-bellied. The malar is bold and thick near the bill, but definitely peters out well before connecting to the bib, so that really leans toward pure Red-naped. The fairly limited white barring on the back also definitely looks like Red-naped. They ALL have a little yellow on the belly, as Tony stated, even Williamson's, so don't let that lure you in any direction.
Look at the malar on this bird, which showed up during the South Lake Tahoe Christmas Bird Count:
Makes me wonder. I know Steve Shunk, author of that article, and I think I'll send him these and see what he thinks. I hadn't even considered Red-naped x Yellow-bellied hybrid for this bird, figuring it was an older female with lots of red in the chin. Good chunk of red on the nape, not much barring on the back, but now the malar has me scratching my head.
Another thing to consider with sapsucker ID is that Yellow-bellied stays in juvenal plumage waaay longer than the other two. So if you see a juv. sapsucker in November or December (or even all the way into March), you have a Yellow-bellied. This Yellow-bellied showed up in Tahoe two Novembers ago:
EDIT: "Willoughby Appreciation Thread????" What the what???
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Jan 22, 2013 - 12:17pm PT
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Thanks Willoughby! I made it far more difficult than it needed to be. Learned some good sapsucker stuff though.
And hell yeah an appreciation thread! You are missed!
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Ron Anderson
Trad climber
Soon to be Nipple suckling Liberal
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Jan 22, 2013 - 12:21pm PT
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werd^^^^^^
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Jan 22, 2013 - 06:37pm PT
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Nice to have Willoughby back...I say Northern Shrike on this one.
 Missing photo ID#285808
Mike..great shots from India.
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10b4me
Boulder climber
Somewhere on 395
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Jan 23, 2013 - 02:49pm PT
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Darwin
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 23, 2013 - 07:10pm PT
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Bob,
I'm not an expert on Northern Shrikes; but the bill looks right if you click and expand your photo. I can't really see the the face mask though.
Darwin
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Dingus Milktoast
Gym climber
And every fool knows, a dog needs a home, and...
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Jan 24, 2013 - 11:18am PT
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Gazing out my window here in Suburbia yesterday I spied our Cooper's hawk perched in the top of a tree. My heart was warmed. I hadn't seen it in a long time and well, not that its the biggest concern in my little world, but I wondered....
:-)
Funny, huh, our emotional attachments to wild things that acknowledge us knott!?
DMT
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dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
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Jan 25, 2013 - 08:41am PT
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Wow, good eye Crimpergirl, and thanks everyone for the comments.
I just returned from a Mojave Trail moto ride with a broken shoulder so I will have time in the next few weeks to study up on hybrids (and go birding!).
One of the coolest things about the ride was when we stopped at Marl Springs (a bug tub of water way out in the middle of the Mojave). Our 45 minutes there interupted the local birds daily drinking habits and by the time we left the brush was filled with hundreds of birds waiting to drink! I had a sort of epiphany that I was getting much more enjoyment out of birding than riding. A couple of hours later while trying to pick myself off the ground I was sure of it. It's a lot quieter as well.
Got this lifer right before leaving at Bolsa Chica.
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Darwin
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 26, 2013 - 11:58am PT
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dee ee
Sorry about your shoulder. Shit! BUT cool about the bittern (American, right?), and you got a good photo of it, too! I still have never seen one.
I found that birding really went well with shoulder recuperation after my surgery 1.3 year ago. Find a good PT!
Darwin
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