[SBB] out of area ID's... (help?)

[Chuq Von Rospach <[[email protected]]>]

Just back from a week driving through oregon, especially down the  
coast. Birding was actually fairly slow, and nothing too out of the  
ordinary for the area (or here, either, for that matter). I do have  
two birds I can't for the life of me ID, although I've been trying  
using my guides and flickr. I"m pretty sure it's more of the  
"juveniles will make you crazy", but I want to ask another favor of  
those of you out there with a clue on this...

First one is here, and I initially thought it was a young merganser  
(based on size and beak shape), but I can't find any photos to back  
that up, but that was the initial impression. It acted like a diving  
duck, and was found in a protected area of Yaquina bay, salt water.  
The goldish eye it shows has me flummoxed.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuqui/1434959764/

The second was seen in the same area on a sand bar with a bunch of  
gulls. I realized there was a "small head" gull in among the usual  
riff-raff, and I thought it might be a Bonaparte's. it's not, not  
with a yellow beak and that plumage, but -- young kittiwake, maybe?  
it flew off and was fairly skittish, but I got some good shots of it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuqui/1434136957/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuqui/1435009208/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuqui/1434137779/in/photostream/

it was interesting, by the way, to see the local variation on plumage  
-- have some good examples of the Oregon dark headed junco and song  
sparrow on disk somewhere. Also saw pigeon guillemot in the whiter,  
non-breeding plumage, first "okay, I trust my eyes" look at marbled  
murrelet, and a common murre or two, but almost all of those had  
split. Big surprise to me was that at Yaquina head near newport,  
where there's a Brandt's rookery, we found a couple of nests with  
young not fully fledged -- the heads were still downy and they were  
being fed by the parents. That seems really late in the season to me,  
given the first fall rain came through while we were there. I've got  
some decent photos I'll post when I catch up.. (otherwise, everywhere  
I looked, those black spots turned into Surf Scoters or cormorants.  
2300 miles on the road, and I get Surf Scoters... giggle)

Oh, minor SBB content: as we were leaving (late morning Saturday  
last) headed up the 680 climb into the east bay, the car was  
overflown by a large bird, vulture sized but definitely not flying  
like one; laurie got a good view of the undercarriage and IDed it as  
a juvie bald eagle. I know we had a nest fledge some young this year  
at Calero, so this may be one of those young...

thanks!





Chuq Von Rospach
[[email protected]]
http://chuqui.typepad.com






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