[texbirds] Re: sabine woodpeckers
- From: Harlan Stewart <hstewartmail@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: TexBirds <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 22:30:16 -0500
Thanks, Ray. No end of confusion from Sabine Woods Melanerpes!
The female Golden-fronted Woodpecker was at Sabine Woods as of May 29th - I was
able to get more photos then. She was hanging out in the same dead tree north
of the drip that both of the birds favor. I did not see her yesterday and I
couldn't make it to Sabine Woods today. Interestingly, Jean Miller observed a
female Golden-fronted Woodpecker at Texas Point NWR (just a couple of miles
from Sabine Woods) on March 12th. No earlier eBird records of GFWO's are cited
for Jefferson County. It would seem reasonable that that observation was of our
current bird - the female may easily have wandered into earshot of calls from
Sabine Woods Melanerpes and decided that the Woods provided better
accommodations. Since the male and female may have paired, I would have
reasonable hopes the female is still around and may stay for some time.
The male of course has been observed in Sabine Woods longer - at the beginning
of this month, I used point and shoot photography methods to obtain my initial
photos: Local "avi-meisters" (including Dr. John Whittle, Steve Mayes, and John
Haynes, who each forget more every day than I'll ever hope to know) pointed the
bird out to this observationally challenged photographer, who diligently shot
the photos.
In any case, the question regarding ancestry of the bird, as Brush Freeman (who
poses the question in a manner of another avi-meister) pointed out, is
intriguing. I've looked on the web for photos of GFWO x RBWO hybrids with very
limited success. My question: where might I obtain a sense of the range of
features of such hybrids? The male "GFWO" has some RBWO-like features -
orangish-red nape, somewhat speckled rump for example -that apparently aren't
unknown for some non-hybrid GFWO's (if I can believe internet search results).
The central retrices are almost "real" GF - the few hybrid photos I've found
show much more white (of course, some southern Florida RBWO's have black
central retrices and some GF subspecies [presuming they haven't been split out
from GFWO at this time] from south of the border have barred retrices like
RBWO's - It all makes my head hurt!).
Harlan
On May 31, 2012, at 3:57 PM, Ray Porter wrote:
> thanks for the pics harlan
>
> today i got some pics of the male "golden fronted" and it is clearly the
> same bird as your pics
>
> then later i found two woodpeckers and thought i had found the male and
> female "golden fronted" but upon analysis of pics and recollection of
> behavior it is clear this was a female red bellied feeding a juvenile
>
> so my question is, do you know if the female golden fronted is still on site?
>
> ray
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