New Art for Sale – August
I’ve just updated the New Art page, adding a few paintings that I’ve completed in the past month, including the Pileated Woodpecker shown here. Thanks for taking a look.
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2011
Abnormal coloration in birds: Melanin reduction
Albino and partial albino birds The presence of white feathers on a normally dark bird is the most frequently seen color abnormality. Every birder can expect to encounter white or partly-white birds with some regularity, and the more striking examples will stand out even to novices. All black and brown coloration in birds comes from
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The mystery of the orange-throated hummingbirds
Update 16 August: a new post Progress on the orange-throated hummingbird mystery. Update 14 Aug 2011: A follow-up to this post is now available, tempering some of these points and adding more questions – Orange-throated Hummingbirds: more questions. Every year in August and September, a few perplexed observers in eastern North America send out questions about
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Possible hybrid Little x Snowy Egrets
A few records of “Snowy” Egrets with long head plumes have turned up in places where Little Egret has also occurred. Are they hybrids, or just rare variants of Snowy? Update 6 Aug 2011 – I had overlooked Martin Reid’s photos from Texas in May 1998 of a very similar long-plumed Snowy-like Egret. So obviously there is
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New bird names in the 52nd AOU Checklist supplement
The North American Checklist Committee of the AOU has published the 52nd supplement to the AOU Checklist of North American Birds. This supplement includes a lot of changes “under the hood” which will hardly be noticed by the average birder. Several splits result in new names but none have an immediate impact on the North American
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Can Short-tailed Shearwater be identified in the field?
Usually. Experienced observers can almost always identify these species correctly based on careful judgment of head shape and bill size, but these are subtle and subjective impressions, and require a foundation of experience and/or direct comparisons with Sooty. Other features can offer supportive clues or draw attention to a potential Short-tailed, but are not very
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Distinguishing Eurasian and American Common Merganser
The Eurasian subspecies group of Common Merganser, known by the English name Goosander, has occurred numerous times in the Aleutian Islands of western Alaska, but has never been identified farther east in North America. The American subspecies has some potential to wander to Eurasia, but has never been recorded there. I’ve never seen any in-depth
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Trumpeter Swans with yellow loral spots
The photo above was recently sent to me by reader Wil Domke. It shows an adult Trumpeter Swan (based on bill size and shape, and on Wil’s identification in the field) with a small yellowish patch on the loral skin. This yellow marking is similar to the yellow spot shown by most Tundra Swans. According
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The mysterious dark Least Bittern
Dark morph (Cory’s) Least Bittern Note: I have never personally seen a living Cory’s Least Bittern. In fact, only six or so have been seen during my lifetime. Most of what follows is based on a very thorough 1996 research paper by Ron Pittaway and Peter Burke (see References below). The illustration shown below is
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Osprey painting at auction
I have donated the painting shown at right – an Osprey carrying a small Striped Bass – to The Nature Conservancy’s Mashomack Preserve on Shelter Island, New York. It will be auctioned at their annual Dinner Dance fundraiser on July 30th. If you’re in the area you might want to drop in and check it
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