That's really cool Barbara. A singing Chestnut-collared Longspur is surely
a very rare event to observe in Oregon! I once heard a Harris's Sparrow
singing at Malheur NWR and thought that was lucky, but the longspur song is
by rarer event this side of the Rockies!
On Fri, Mar 15, 2019 at 1:52 AM Barbara Combs <bcombs232@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I heard the bird sing after it flew up out of the grass and was up in the
sky. It sounded almost exactly like to Chestnut-collared Longspur song in
my iBird Ultimate app. The other longspurs were not a match. I listened
to the song, and the other longspur songs and calls, on the app only a
couple of minutes after I heard the bird.
On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 10:28 PM David Bailey <
davidcbaileyoregon@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Roy Gerig et al. photos of the Linn County longspur show a buffy birdBarbara Combs obie '70
with vague underpants streaking and a pale eyering; and a seemingly large
bill. The primary projection seems short, but aside from that, and Roy's
initial observation of the bird giving a 'kiddle' call, the other Mark's
make me think Smith's longspur based on The Sibley Guide to Bird. I am
flummoxed by why Sibly points out things like a pale eyering on one
longspur, but not the others, he also mentions streaking of various
description, butvthise are subtle enough as to not be useful as field
identification marks. Fieldmarks by definition ought to be useful in the
field. I think this illustrates that longspur field identification is still
a a frontier in birding. This is not meant to be an attack on Sibley, of
whom I have great praise, or an argument against the Identification of the
plain-looking longspur as a Chestnut-collared, but a request for clarity.
David
David C. Bailey
Seaside, Oregon
--
Lane County, OR