Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 15:15:55 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Sherry Peruzzi Subject: Re: Help with bird identification? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Whew! Thanks for all the responses! My husband Ken looked and came up with flicker, too. I did think of a woodpecker first, but when I looked through Sibley's I was stymied because of a couple of things my friend said that didn't seem to work for any of them. The flicker looks decidedly brown in Sibley's and my friend insisted the bird he saw was gray ... but flicker in the Kaufmann guide is indeed much grayer. My friend also maintained that the red triangle was shaped just like a roadside-emergency caution triangle, and that didn't seem to fit either. But I think you all are right and it was indeed a flicker. I told my friend that if I couldn't figure it out I knew just whom to ask. Thanks for helping out this novice birder. Sherry Sherry Peruzzi wrote: > > Ospreyers, > > A friend here in Columbia just called me to ask what the unusual bird on > his lawn was, but from his description, I haven't a clue. He was looking > at the bird as he described it to me and responded to my questions about > it. > > The most striking feature he described was an open red triangle on the > back of its neck, "like it was wearing a neckerchief with the middle cut > out." He said its head was gray and its back was "speckled gray." He > couldn't see the undertail, but the upper side of its tail was "striped > like a zebra" and "shaped like a fish-tail." He said the breast was > primarily pale gray, but with a "pink tinge" to it. The bill was > described as black, long and pointed. > > The bird was walking around on the lawn pecking at the ground; there was > a robin there, too, and he said this bird was slightly larger than the > robin, "about the size of a blue jay," and had a longer bill than the > robin. > > I was about to say I'd be right over when he said, "Oh, a squirrel just > chased it away." > > I went through the Sibley guide almost page by page and found various > birds that matched *some* of those field marks, but I couldn't find > anything that matched all of them. > > Does anyone have the slightest idea of what he could have been looking > at? He promised to call me if it showed up again. > > Thanks, > > Sherry Peruzzi > Howard County > bookworms@home.com > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================