ID-FRONTIERS for October 21-27, 2001

Messages are displayed in the order they were received.  Subject  From  Date   Time   'Dark-rumped Petrel" i.d.   Don Roberson    Sun, 21 Oct 2001   3:10pm   seeking email address   Bob & Glenda    Mon, 22 Oct 2001   12:11pm   Mediterranean and Balearic Shearwaters photos online   =?iso-8859-1?Q?Ricar   Mon, 22 Oct 2001   3:24pm   Italy. Mistery calidris   =?iso-8859-1?q?Menot   Wed, 24 Oct 2001   6:04am   Seeking input on snipe identification   Martin Reid    Fri, 26 Oct 2001   8:25pm   Photos of possible Hammond's Flycatcher from New York   Angus Wilson    Sat, 27 Oct 2001   6:15pm   thayer's/iceland season   Phil Pickering    Sat, 27 Oct 2001   6:18pm   Re: Seeking input on snipe identification   Bruce Mactavish    Sat, 27 Oct 2001   7:20pm   Re: Photos of possible Hammond's Flycatcher from New York   John Puschock    Sat, 27 Oct 2001   8:42pm   Re: Photos of possible Hammond's Flycatcher from New York   Phil Pickering    Sat, 27 Oct 2001   9:17pm

To use email addresses replace '(AT)' with '@'. This is done to confuse the spam 'bots.

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Subject: 'Dark-rumped Petrel" i.d.
From: Don Roberson <creagrus(AT)MONTEREYBAY.COM>
Date: 21 Oct 2001 3:10pm

A preliminary investigation into the question of which 'Dark-rumped Petrel'
occurs off California -- Hawaiian Petrel and/or Galapagos Petrel -- is now
on-line with a photo and text-heavy comparison of the few photographed
California birds with birds in the Galapagos. It is at
http://montereybay.com/creagrus/DRPE_id.html

Your comments are elicited to improve understanding of this topic, and I
welcome additional photos that could be incorporated into a better discussion,
including at-sea shots of Hawaiian Petrel.

Thanks,
Don Roberson
Pacific Grove CA


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Subject: seeking email address
From: Bob & Glenda <curry.slessor(AT)SYMPATICO.CA>
Date: 22 Oct 2001 12:11pm

Almost two years ago Peter de Knijff wrote to this listserv with a request
for Dunlin slides for a paper on Dunlin subspecies.  I recently tried to
contact him using the email address he provided but it bounced back.

He gave his address as follows:

    Peter de Knijff
    Keersluis 34
    2408 PL Alphen aan den Rijn
    The Netherlands

I would appreciate it if anyone could email me privately with his correct
email address.

Thanks,

Bob Curry
3115 New St. Unit 30
Burlington, ON
Canada
L7N 3T6
905-637-2022
curry.slessor(AT)sympatico.ca


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Subject: Mediterranean and Balearic Shearwaters photos
         online
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Ricard_Guti=E9rrez?= <GUTARB(AT)TERRA.ES>
Date: 22 Oct 2001 3:24pm

Hello:
NE Spain is perhaps the best area to compare side by side these two species
of shearwater once splitted from Manx (Puffinus puffinus) and now widely
acknowledged as species: Mediterranean (P.yelkouan) and Balearic
(P.mauretanicus). Despite major challenge for identification is the
recognition of possible vagrant yelkouan to the Atlantic perhaps following
the annual movements of mauretanicus to Atlantic coast of France (there area
some claims from NW Spain), all this due to the fact it is so similar to
Manx, this problem does not happen in the Mediterranean. Here, Balearic
looks with a different estructure and design. However, there are still many
observers looking for more information on these species, Hence, I've created
a page with some videocaptures of both species taken during a seawatch last
saturday 20.10.2001 off Cap de Creus, NE Spain.
At Rare Birds in Spain website http://www.terra.es/personal3/gutarb/

Yours

Ricard Gutiérrez
23.10.2001


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Subject: Italy. Mistery calidris
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Menotti=20Passarella?= <aster_men(AT)YAHOO.COM>
Date: 24 Oct 2001 6:04am

Hi all !

I'm presenting a mistery bird, a Calidris stint; two
photos of it were taken yesterday in the Po Delta,
south of Venice, NE Italy.

In this photo, the mistery is the one at left, while
at right there is a Little Stint (Calidris minuta):

http://www.geocities.com/aster_men/twocalidris.JPG

In this second photo, one can see two Little Stints
(Calidris minuta) at left, and the mistery at right:

http://www.geocities.com/aster_men/twocalidris01.JPG

According to me the mistery is a little bit bigger
than the Little Stints; is it probably a Semipalmated
Sandpiper (Calidris pusilla) ?

Cheers

Menotti Passarella
Italy

email: aster_men(AT)yahoo.com

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Subject: Seeking input on snipe identification
From: Martin Reid <upupa(AT)AIRMAIL.NET>
Date: 26 Oct 2001 8:25pm

Dear all,
I'd really value some feedback on the issue of trying to identifying to
identify a vagrant nominate gallinago snipe in North America.  Please
examine the text/photos of a recent candidate:
http://www.martinreid.com/snipe2.html
- and I'd especially appreciate any URLs (or other published references)
that show either nominate gallinago or delicata in flight - thanks.
Martin

Martin Reid
Fort Worth, Texas
upupa(AT)airmail.net
http://www.martinreid.com  or  http://www.cyberramp.net/~upupa


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Subject: Photos of possible Hammond's Flycatcher from New
         York
From: Angus Wilson <wilsoa02(AT)ENDEAVOR.MED.NYU.EDU>
Date: 27 Oct 2001 6:15pm

Photos of a possible Hammond's Flycatcher from Jones Beach, Long Island
New York can be viewed at:

http://www.oceanwanderers.com/Empid.html

All informed comments on the identification of this bird welcome!

Cheers,

Angus Wilson
New York City
angus.wilson(AT)med.nyu.edu
http://www.oceanwanderers.com/


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Subject: thayer's/iceland season
From: Phil Pickering <philliplc(AT)HARBORSIDE.COM>
Date: 27 Oct 2001 6:18pm

For those that are interested, here's another pale juvenile
Thayer's showing plumage tendencies that are perhaps
suggestive of an intergrade with glaucoides. This was taken
on the central Oregon coast on 10/22/01 -

http://www.harborside.com/~philliplc/thayers2001.jpg

I am noticing that some of these plumage tendencies, such
as an isolation of spots or arrowheads in the primary
tips, this particular scapular and covert pattern, tertials
with tip markings darker than their solid bases, and a
bill base that may show more pale than typical, do seem to
show up together, perhaps even proportionally. This could
certainly suggest that these birds are showing modern
introgression with glaucoides, but perhaps it is just that paler-
end Thayer's have more of a tendency towards showing
ancestral plumage patterns that are shared with glaucoides.

Whatever the case, the plumage patterning on this bird was
only slightly darker than an average Glaucous-winged, and
the plumage will likely be closer to white in 6 months or so.

Cheers,

Phil Pickering
Lincoln City, Oregon
philliplc(AT)harborside.com


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Subject: Re: Seeking input on snipe identification
From: Bruce Mactavish <bruce.mactavish1(AT)NF.SYMPATICO.CA>
Date: 27 Oct 2001 7:20pm

Martin asks if there are records of G. g. gallinago snipe in the New World
outside of the western Alaskan islands. There is a specimen from Makkovik,
Labrador Dec. 24, 1927, same day as a Jack Snipe!

Bruce Mactavish
St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
bruce.mactavish1(AT)nf.sympatico.ca


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Subject: Re: Photos of possible Hammond's Flycatcher from
         New York
From: John Puschock <g_g_allin(AT)HOTMAIL.COM>
Date: 27 Oct 2001 8:42pm

>Photos of a possible Hammond's Flycatcher from Jones Beach, Long Island
>New York can be viewed at:
>
>http://www.oceanwanderers.com/Empid.html
>
>All informed comments on the identification of this bird welcome!

I'll take a stab at this one, though I can't claim to be terribly informed.
:-)

My first impression when looking at the photos was that the bill looks wrong
for Hammond's.  It looks too long, and the fact that the lower mandible
appears to be entirely orange, at least from the side, makes me
uncomfortable.  I'm not really able to get a handle on it's shape from the
top or the bottom, so I can't comment on that.

However, that long primary extension looks _really_ good for a Hammond's and
too long for a Least or a Dusky.  Figure 1 on the webpage is the most
interesting one to me -- you can get a great look at the relative lengths of
some of the primaries.

Referring to page 219 in Pyle (ID Guide to N. Am. Birds, Part I), the
differences in longest primary minus p6 are 1.8 to 5.5 mm, 0.8 to 3.7 mm,
and 0.0 to 3.0 mm for Hammond's, Least, and Dusky, respectively.  If we
assume the longest primary in Figure 1 is p8 (which it often is in many N.
Am. empids), there appears to be a huge gap between the longest primary and
p6, which would be perfect for Hammond's and would probably rule out Least
and Dusky.  You can see the underside of the wing in Figure 5, and it looks
to me that there only two primaries on the underside of the longest primary,
meaning p8 is the longest.  Of course, I could be missing a primary and
counting wrong, which would throw everything off...Anyway, the relative
lengths of the primaries in Figure 1 appear to match up with what Sibley
shows for Hammond's, but not Least or Dusky.

Figure 11, and to a lesser extent Figure 1, shows a big notch in the tail
(i.e., r6-r1).  According to Pyle, r6-r1=4 to 6 mm in Hammond's, but only 1
to 4 mm for Least and 1 to 5 mm for Dusky.  Therefore, playing the odds, the
tail notch falls within the range of Hammond's but outside that of most
Least and Dusky.

But obviously, I'm just guessing at the relative lengths of these
measurements.  Perhaps a better estimate of these lengths could be made if
the object on which the bird is perched in Figure 1 is measured and used as
a reference.

So, based on wing and tail morphology, it looks like a Hammond's.  The bill
doesn't look like classic Hammond's, but what are you going to do?  I should
also add a warning that most of my empid experience comes from banding
Dusky, Hammond's, and Gray in New Mexico, so I really don't know much about
Acadian and Yellow-bellied, particularly this late in the year.  Of course,
the mostly gray head contrasting with the greenish back is good for
Hammond's and probably helps rule out most other empids...but I still wish
it had a dark lower mandible and a more obvious short bill.

John Puschock
g_g_allin(AT)hotmail.com

_________________________________________________________________
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Subject: Re: Photos of possible Hammond's Flycatcher from
         New York
From: Phil Pickering <philliplc(AT)HARBORSIDE.COM>
Date: 27 Oct 2001 9:17pm

For whatever it's worth, there is a photo of a presumably
correctly identified Hammond's in the Audubon Encyclopedia
of N.A. Birds that shows a similar appearance to the lower
mandible - yellowish edges and darker only in the middle.

My take is that the bill actually appears quite slight in most of
the images - somewhat short for Dusky and too narrow and
straight-sided for Least, perfect for Hammond's.

Cheers,

Phil Pickering
Lincoln City, Oregon
philliplc(AT)harborside.com

.......  Of course,
>the mostly gray head contrasting with the greenish back is good for
>Hammond's and probably helps rule out most other empids...but I still wish
>it had a dark lower mandible and a more obvious short bill.
>
>John Puschock
>g_g_allin(AT)hotmail.com