Re: Western Tanager at Riverbend, VA
KurtCapt87@aol.com
Thu, 8 Oct 1998 19:28:43 EDT
Rob,
I have heard of this thin wing bar on the black wings of Scarlet's
occasionally being seen on first year birds after the molt into basic plummage
(or maybe it is during the molt?). Cannot say I have ever seen this, but all
the books describe it to some degree. Fortunately, the wing bars on a Western
are quite obvious (including the one at Riverbend) and do not require a second
look from a more direct angle to glimpse. In fact, when I first viewed the
bird, it was from the back and the lime green scapular, lighter lime green
colored-nape and back of head and the white wing bars on the grayish wings
(viewing angle about 15degrees, and note that the wings were not black) lead
to an initial thought that this was a warbler, possibly a Black-throated
Green. When the bird turned and the nice yellow breast (quite unlike a
Scarlet's greenish yellow) contrasted quite well with the nape and scapulars,
I was clearly forced to think in other directions. Imagine, if you will,
picking up a lime and a lemon at the grocery store and holding them side-to-
side. This is somewhat similar to the colors on the Western at Riverbend.
(There is this great Simon Perkins story in Mass. about denying a Western
sighting because the lime green back was not described. A few minutes after
the initial call was placed to the hotline number, Perkins called the
correspondent with the reply, "you saw a Baltimore Oriole - Westerns have
green backs," and then quickly hung up. No amount of arguments subsequently
made a difference to him since people can easily change their descriptions
after the fact!).
The helpful Yellow-rump landing on the next branch gave a useful size
reference as well as body shape reference - somewhat chunky and not slender
(which was neccessary to consider and eliminate a Balto Oriole - the poor
lighting at that point had not allowed me to carefully consider the bill of
the bird. Fortunately, I could reacquire the bird after it flew over to the
tree-edge and presented itself in much better light.
Kurt Gaskill