With one of this morning's SFO local group, I saw what I'm pretty sure was a Swainson's Thrush (tawny spectacles) along the connector trail from Hoyt-Pileated, the one that isn't the power cut. Only had a brief look before I could get anyone else on it and got distracted by a much more cooperative female black-throated blue. This was around 10:50.
Earlier, at the southernmost portion of the east trail, just west of the pond by the "frog barn", a much more cooperative thrush perched on the fence post for a good couple minutes for all to admire and then to scratch our collective heads at its identity. No hint of red in the upper half, weak eye-ring, no "connector" on spectacles. I was ready to call it a gray-cheeked. But the front showed no spotting whatsoever, which conflicts with Sibley's "more heavily spotted breast than other thrushes" remark. Any opinions on what this might be? We started wondering whether it might be a veery missing some color. Other highlights of the day were a Wilson's warbler in the area near the pergola, many cooperative eye-level chestnut-sided warblers, and an interesting episode in the woods trying to locate a very loudly drumming sapsucker when someone spotted the shadow of the drumming sapsucker projected onto a tree - Peter Pan's sapsucker? - before we found the bird on the underside of a diagonal log hidden from our view but not that of the sun. Suan _____________________ http://suan-yong.com -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
