The feathers along the side of the lower jaw have a very confusing history of terminology. They’ve been called the malar stripe (in many early and mid 20th century bird books), the submoustachial ((Because this was a British proposal, the spelling is British “moustache” rather than the American “mustache”, and American bird guides have continued […]
What is the submoustachial? Read More »
The feathers that grow on the sides of the head above the eyes of a bird are called the supercilium, and when they contrast in color with the adjacent feathers we call that an eyebrow stripe. There’s lots of variation in the shape of the eyebrow stripe, and in some closely-related species this can be
The changeable shape of the supercilium Read More »
In a previous post I’ve talked about Trumpeter Swans with yellow bill spots as a source of confusion with Tundra Swan. I speculated that the yellow spots might be showing because the birds are leucistic (lacking melanin). The responses to that post are worthy of a follow-up. Harry Lumsden, who has studied the reintroduced Trumpeter
Trumpeter Swans, yellow bill spots, and leucism Read More »
One of the well-defined groups of feathers on the underside of a bird is what we call the breast. In reality, on songbirds these feathers grow from the front of the neck, extending down so that the tips of the feathers (which is all we can see) cover the foreparts of the body – the
Introduction to breast feathers Read More »
In previous posts here I’ve asked “How many rare birds do we miss?” and the related question “How many rare birds do we find?” Several recent rare bird discoveries provide a good chance to revisit these questions. Consider these recent discoveries:
Rare birds “under the radar” Read More »
The other morning I was passing a farm field near my house. It’s a place where I often go birding and as I glanced around I was thinking “maybe there could be a Rough-legged Hawk today”. But I’ve never seen a Rough-legged Hawk here in 12 years in the neighborhood, and all I could see
Rough-legged vs. Red-tailed? Read More »
Yesterday I painted a Northern Saw-whet Owl of the very distinctive Queen Charlotte Islands subspecies A. a. brooksi, which was inexplicably left out of the first edition of the Sibley Guide. I’ll post more details about the status and identification of this subspecies here soon. Today I’m just posting photos that I took showing the
Painting a Saw-whet Owl Read More »
A recent discussion about geographic variation in Herring Gulls (on the ID-Frontiers listserve) prompted me to go back and scan some photos I took in 1998 at Cape May. At the time I was sorting out what seemed to be two populations of Herring Gulls, identifiable in their first winter by plumage and shape. There
Variation in immature American Herring Gulls Read More »
As I work on the revision of my field guide I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how the book can assist the process of identification, and what information is most useful to a birder in the field. I’ve settled on the idea that there are two stages of bird identification, each one requiring
The two stages of field identification Read More »
Thanks to reader Anne DuPont for sending in these photos of a pair of Great Blue Herons at Wakodahatchee Wetlands, Delray Beach, Florida. It’s clearly a mated pair, but the female (sexed by behavior) has more white on the head and fore neck, paler legs and bill, white head plumes, paler rust color on the
A Wurdemann’s-like heron from South Florida Read More »