Greetings All,
I did some further poking about on North American Birds Online (BNA) and photo
comparisons with my own photos of chats.
This bird doesn't appear to have jet black lores like an adult male. The lores
look gray or slaty-gray in most of the images, which would make this bird
either a first-winter bird or an adult female. Looking closely at the bill, it
appears to be horn-colored and while fairly dark in some of the images it
doesn't appear to be black, which is the typical color on adult chats. It is
typical that late lingering birds like this are youngsters, which I
woulddefinitely lean toward with this bird given its appearance. Based on what
I can glean from BNA, Yellow-breasted Chats only molt once a year prior to
leaving their breeding grounds, thus an adult chat at this time of year should
be in fairly fresh plumage and look essentially like it looks during the
breeding season when we normally see them. The face pattern, eyering thickness,
and sparse white supercilium are not suggestive of an adult to my eye.
Dave Irons
Beaverton, OR
________________________________
From: obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of
Matthew G Hunter <matthewghunter@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2018 9:14 PM
To: obol
Subject: [obol] Yellow-breasted Chat, Sutherlin, DougCo
Hi Folks,
A YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT has been in a backyard near Ford's Pond, Sutherlin,
for almost a week and was photographed for the Roseburg-Sutherlin CBC on
Saturday. Photos in this checklist:
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S50682884
*What are winter records since those listed in Herlyn and Contreras (Handbook
of Oregon Birds, 2009).
*Anyone want to suggest eastern vs western chat for this or any previous
records, as is sometimes done with our out-of-range gnatcatchers?
Matt Hunter
DougCo, OR