Hi All,
I was up in Boot Canyon on Saturday, May 30, 2015, 6 days after Sam Fason was
there, and I think I cautiously concur with his assessment of the identity of
the Flame-colored-like Tanagers there. I saw and heard exactly 3 Piranga
tanagers during my several hours there - a typical male Hepatic Tanager and the
two hybrid-looking tanagers. The hybrid tanagers were singing almost constantly
while I was there, and seemed to be defending two adjacent territories, with
the more Western Tanager-looking bird (Sam's Tanager #2, I believe) ranging
predominately above the spring, and the paler orange tanager, (Sam's Tanager
#1) ranging mostly below the spring. These birds sang very loudly and
persistently (much more loudly than the nearby HETA), and I could not detect
any difference between their songs. So, I was thinking at the time that both
birds were hybrid Western x Flame-colored Tanagers, but just different
phenotypic expressions of the hybridization. I never heard either bird make the
"chidibit" call that Western Tanagers often include in their songs, so I was
thinking that Tanager #2, which looked very Western-like, was not a pure WETA,
but a WETA x FCTA hybrid.
Sam's suggestion of different hybrid combinations for the two different birds
may make more sense, though, than both birds being WETA x FCTA hybrids.
I got some crummy photos of both birds, although my very poor images of Tanager
#2 (if it is the same bird that Sam had 6 days before) do show some narrow
white tertial edges, and some poorly-defined vertical streaks on the back.
Also, the upper wing bar on my proposed hybrid bird looks more whitish than on
Sam's bird, although it's a poor image in poor light. So, maybe it's the same
bird as his, or maybe it is a different bird. Unfortunately, the only photos I
have of the more WETA-looking bird do NOT show the bird's head, which I recall
as looking very WETA-like, reddish-orange on the crown, with paler yellow
below, but with a grayish auricular patch.
I will try to post a few of these photos to my Flickr page before too long, and
then folks can contrast and compare.
BTW, I did hear the Northern Pygmy-Owl in Pine Canyon on two different
afternoons, Friday, May 29 about 3:30 p.m. and again on Sunday May 31 at about
2:30 p.m. but never could see the bird. Both days, I heard the bird at or
slightly above the third creek crossing, right where the trail becomes much
more steep. The vocalizations on Friday were brief series of single "toots"
about 1 second apart, but for only 3 or 4 repetitions each time, and emitted
spontaneously, as I played no recordings. On Sunday, I heard a call which
sounded like it was much farther up canyon from where I was located at the 3rd
creek crossing. The bird gave a series of about 4 paired toots about 1 second
apart, then a slightly longer series of single toots also spaced about 1 second
apart. I had not seen a bird fly or perched near me, so I figured the bird was
upslope. When I started hiking up the trail, the bird stopped singing and did
not vocalize again. There were no other birders or hikers on the trail either
time, so I was not hearing someone else's recording.
After hearing from my good friend Randy Pinkston about his experience with NOPO
at Pine Canyon in September 2007, I wonder if the bird was within sight of me,
but just sounded like it was further upslope. And stopped singing when I
started moving. I have noticed in the past that the calls of similar small owls
(like Northern Saw-whet) can be highly ventriloquistic, and seem to be coming
from a location very different from the physical location of the bird.
I heard it, so it's going on my list, but I do wish I could have seen it.
Good birding ya'll,
Byron Stone, Austin
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