Monday, November 7, 2011

Shoot Me Monday

Last week I searched Columbus Park on two different days for a reported Prothonotary Warbler without any luck.  This Ruddy Ground-Dove stayed hidden most of the time.  A new life bird!  On the second day of searching, I took this through-the-bushes shot.

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InfoNatura: Animals and Ecosystems of Latin America [web application]. 2007. Version 5.0 . Arlington, Virginia (USA): NatureServe. Available: http://www.natureserve.org/infonatura. (Accessed: November 6, 2011 ).

5 comments:

  1. Congrats on the life bird. Interesting how we miss the target but often get something else special instead.

    dan

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  2. Congrats on another life bird Jeremy! Finding the unexpected is such delightful serendipity!

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  3. Cute bird! Congrats on the lifer... this is one I haven't even heard of before!

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  4. This type of dove differs from the Inca and Common ground dove in the colouration below, which is more red, and by having white edges to the secondaries and some of the wing coverts. You may have observed its movements to identify it, and the photograph does show the white edges on the wings.

    It is often difficult to try to identify new birds, especially if they are rare or vagrants, and I am often loathe to jump to fast conclusions. I visited Pack Park on the 24th, and among a flock of bluebirds saw what I have reason to assume (tentatively) would be a pair of juvenile Northern Shrikes (Lanius excubitor borealis)--not the Loggerhead. In N. America, the juvenile Northern Shrikes are unlike the juveniles of their European counterparts, which may not, in my opinion, justify their inclusion as the same species. The one point I cannot get around is the black/white on the tail, but otherwise, they actually gave me the impression of being either female or juvenile bluebirds. There was a faint dull brown streak through the eye, but I did not seem them well enough (particularly their beaks) to get a better idea. This is intriguing because--if my observations are correct--it suggests an incidence of mimicry in favor of the shrikes. The Northern Shrike is rare in Arizona, but it has been recorded, and its seasonal distribution does not overlap that much with the Western Bluebird.

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