? Cooper's ?

[RobinHood]

22 minutes ago, PalmWarbler said:

hybrid

Nooooo. Fortunately there is virtually no evidence for this. This item has some interesting discussion on the subject including comments by banders.

https://www.naturescapes.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=84310&start=20&view=print

[Seanbirds]

7 minutes ago, RobinHood said:

Nooooo. Fortunately there is virtually no evidence for this. This item has some interesting discussion on the subject including comments by banders.

https://www.naturescapes.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=84310&start=20&view=print

@RobinHood I think that was more of a joke than anything else.

[RobinHood]

36 minutes ago, Seanbirds said:

I think that was more of a joke than anything else.

I realized that and I'm sure I've looked it up before but I thought I'd double check to make sure there was nothing new on that front.

[IKLland]

11 hours ago, Dan P said:

The problem is when I try to change it to Cooper's/Sharp-shinned it shows that as RARE.  So the reviewer will get it again and tell me its a Cooper's.

I’ve had this problem multiple times where if I want to use a slash and one species is common and the other is rare, it’s flagged. If you just wright, “ hard to tell”, “ Wasn’t sure between COHA or SSHA, but it was one of the two”, or something else like that, you get the idea and you should be fine. 

[The Bird Nuts]

4 hours ago, RobinHood said:

@AlexHenry @The Bird Nuts

Doesn't the extent of the head projection, especially in the second photo, suggest Cooper's?

Also the residual longitudinal streaking looks fairly thin (I'm thinking this is a second year bird with the dark brown streaking changing to orange barring?).

I struggle with eye location but it looks quite forward to me.

FWIW.

There's a reason I didn't comment on this one. haha

[TKbird]

EBird's own support page states, "We encourage eBirders to make use of [spuhs and slashes]"... yet many flag, even when both/all relevant species don't!  I've never understood the logic behind which are selected as non-flagging options (the same goes for subspecies, especially expected, field-identifiable ones).  That said, every spuh/slash I've submitted has been accepted without a problem (even though I rarely add comments on them) including several that had not previously been used in the county.  And yes, if you're wondering, I do check back to make sure they were confirmed. ?

[RobinHood]

2 hours ago, The Bird Nuts said:

There's a reason I didn't comment on this one. haha

Don't think I haven't noticed you using this approach before. ?

This bird seems like the perfect candidate to demonstrate the unreliability of relying on just one or two markers (despite my leaning to Cooper's the faint white supercilium and confusing tail have me wondering) so I suspect AlexHenry has the right approach, although presumably the local eBird reviewer has the edge on an ID.

I would be interested to know if anyone else thinks this bird is making the change from juvenile to adult breast markings ie. streaking to barring.

[TKbird]

For anyone still curious (as I was) about whether Tony might just possibly have been wrong given that another eBird reviewer called this a COHA... this observation has now been confirmed as a SSHA.

https://ebird.org/checklist/S91633793?view=photos

[Dan P]

@TKbird, Thanks for posting this.  I meant to inform you after I got the confirmation from the reviewer.