[texbirds] Fw: ID help on Nightjar
- From: "Mel Cooksey" <cooksey@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "TexBirds posts" <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 08:30:10 -0500
David,
This is a nighthawk. When looking at sharp digital images
of nightjars, one of the tell-tale clues is length of rictal
bristles. Caprimulgids (whips, chucks) as well as Paraque,
Poorwill all have LONG rictal bristles. Nighthawks
have very short rictal bristles, often almost invisible,
since they don't extend past the bill. This is obvious in
your photos.
I don't think Whip-poor-wills would have underparts
barring nearly as well defined as this bird. Normally
whips have smudged, mottled breast patterns, with
some vague barring.
I don't know if we can pin down a nighthawk species,
but my impression was Lesser. We cannot see the
inner primaries, due to the scaps draping over them,
but it appears in one shot that we can get a glimpse of
a rufous bar on an inner primary. That would indicate
LENI.
Mel Cooksey
Corpus Christi
----- Original Message -----
From: "David McDonald" <davidkmcd@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 10:15 PM
Subject: [texbirds] ID help on Nightjar
> Hi Texbirders,
>
> I posted photos of what I thought was an Eastern Whip-poor-will
> yesterday morning at the Texas A&M birding site in Galveston.
>
> When flushed, it definitely did not have white bars on the wings, and
> some photos showed the wings to be shorter than tail.
>
> No one who looked at the photos questioned my ID. Here are the 2
> photos from yesterday.
>
> http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/149921790
>
> http://www.pbase.com/davidmcd/image/149921791
>
> I went back there after work today, and arrived at 6pm this evening
> and the bird or a similar one was still there.
>
> When flushed it did have buffy but not white transverse bars on the wings.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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