Re: Western Tanager at Riverbend, VA

Rob Hilton (robert@csa.com)
Fri, 09 Oct 1998 07:47:31 -0400 

Kurt and Darius, 

I did some research at home last night (without your description, which I
left in the office).  Thanks for your (additional) messages.  I brought the
Pyle banding guide and the Howell and Webb Mexican guide in to work and
*if* I have time today will study them with Kurt's original post at hand.
Otherwise I will do that tonight.  


Kurt--

I am thinking about visiting Riverbend Park tomorrow, Saturday.  If you
receive this message before 4 (possibly 6) pm, can you reply privately?  

Thanks, 

Rob Hilton
robert@csa.com
Bethesda, Md. 

At 07:28 PM 10/8/98 EDT, KurtCapt87@aol.com wrote:
>Rob,
>
>I have heard of this thin wing bar on the black wings of Scarlet's
>occasionally being seen on first year birds after the molt into basic
plummage
>(or maybe it is during the molt?).  Cannot say I have ever seen this, but all
>the books describe it to some degree.  Fortunately, the wing bars on a
Western
>are quite obvious (including the one at Riverbend) and do not require a
second
>look from a more direct angle to glimpse.  In fact, when I first viewed the
>bird, it was from the back and the lime green scapular, lighter lime green
>colored-nape and back of head and the white wing bars on the grayish wings
>(viewing angle about 15degrees, and note that the wings were not black) lead
>to an initial thought that this was a warbler, possibly a Black-throated
>Green.  When the bird turned and the nice yellow breast (quite unlike a
>Scarlet's greenish yellow) contrasted quite well with the nape and scapulars,
>I was clearly forced to think in other directions.  Imagine, if you will,
>picking up a lime and a lemon at the grocery store and holding them side-to-
>side.  This is somewhat similar to the colors on the Western at Riverbend.  
>
>(There is this great Simon Perkins story in Mass. about denying a Western
>sighting because the lime green back was not described.  A few minutes after
>the initial call was placed to the hotline number, Perkins called the
>correspondent with the reply, "you saw a Baltimore Oriole - Westerns have
>green backs," and then quickly hung up.  No amount of arguments subsequently
>made a difference to him since people can easily change their descriptions
>after the fact!).
>
>The helpful Yellow-rump landing on the next branch gave a useful size
>reference as well as body shape reference - somewhat chunky and not slender
>(which was neccessary to consider and eliminate a Balto Oriole - the poor
>lighting at that point had not allowed me to carefully consider the bill of
>the bird.  Fortunately, I could reacquire the bird after it flew over to the
>tree-edge and presented itself in much better light.
>  
>Kurt Gaskill
>
>