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The Bird Nuts

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    why is this bird giving me fits?

    in Help Me Identify a North American Bird

    Posted

    On 12/22/2022 at 1:56 PM, Snake Fingers said:

    Looks like a Red Shoulder to me. Look at these markings on the wing, which are supposed to be a field mark on ALL Red Shoulders. However I’m not too experienced with raptors.

    3332279E-79A6-4BF6-9B46-BB158D2F5B78.jpeg

    Not quite.  The distinctive pale barring or "icicles" on a Red-shouldered are on the secondaries.

    secondaries.thumb.jpg.258f9cab53563b2f304fb3e61a709f39.jpg

    I agree that this is a Red-shouldered though.

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    Would you sparrow me a moment of your time?

    in Help Me Identify a North American Bird

    Posted

    23 hours ago, Avery said:

    Per Birds of the World: 

    “During winter, some WS birds (especially females in basic plumage) become duller, plumage color variation is continuous (Atkinson and Ralph 1980), and morph is difficult but still possible to determine with 80-90% accuracy (Piper and Wiley 1991aa). Recently described PCR methods provide 100% accuracy in determining both sex and morph using any sample from which DNA can be extracted…“

    Thanks, that's interesting.  Perhaps I see mostly young birds during the winter.

    • Like 1

    Would you sparrow me a moment of your time?

    in Help Me Identify a North American Bird

    Posted

    On 12/19/2022 at 8:35 PM, Quiscalus quiscula said:

    Another dull tan-striped morph White-throated Sparrow I believe. Structure and back color look good, and the scruffy throat feathers are white. I assume it was about the same size?

    I could be wrong here as I haven't been able to find much information on this, but I don't think you can tell the morph of a winter White-throated.  The spring is when the white-striped morphs start to show their white crown stripes.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

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