Enlarged photo of Yellow-billed Cuckoo

-

I further cropped one of the photos below to super enlarge the face of this Yellow-billed Cuckoo to show it's grayish orbital ring. I haven't often either viewed a Yellow-billed Cuckoo up close or taken photos that provide the close-up views as I did with the bird I found yesterday in Van's Grove. I have seen in Sibley's and National Geographic (6th ed) that they have a yellow orbital ring and show drawings of both adult and juvenile birds with yellow orbital rings. When I cropped my photos to enlarge them it was clear that the bird I found did not have a yellow orbital ring-it was grayish. So I did some reading and now am confused. Birds of North America online states, "Orbital skin pale yellow in nestling; grayish in adult." McGill Bird Observatory (has banding photos) states, "A quick and reliable way to determine age in Yellow-billed Cuckoos is by the orbital ring, which is yellow in HY/SY birds (until late winter or spring) and grayish in older individuals." So, I wonder if anyone here has expertise with these cuckoos to address this apparent contradiction? I say apparent as a possibility is that both Sibley as well as Jon Dunn and Jonathan Alderfer ignored the yellow coloration on the orbital rings of the drawings of juvenile birds in their respective field guides (??). SeEtta

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spotted Sandpiper Chicks, 3 more days older

-
Image
Two days when I went to check on the Spotted Sandpiper family at Florence River Park I thought they had likely perished--there were two men engaged in gold panning right where the parent sandpiper had been and they had dug some of the sand from the bank where I last saw the sandpiper chicks. Arggh, I was afraid that all this activity, plus a large off leash dog with these people, would have scared the parent away and even if the chicks were successful in hiding in the vegetation they would not survive without a parent at their young age. What a surprise when I returned that evening for one last check to be accosted by the parent sandpiper calling loudly and challenging me by walking right towards me (and my dog). It took awhile for the parent to settle down and for one of the chicks to walk in some grass where I could spot it--the parent had moved the chicks about 150 from the river into an area with a lot of vegetation. I returned day before yesterday and refound the parent and ...
Read more

Recently fledged Common Raven

-
Image
At the end of March this year I spotted a Common Raven going into a crevice above a rock face of a local cliff area called Castle Rock (as part of it looks sort of like a castle). I started watching this area and observed a pair of Common Ravens spending time around this location. On March 27 I spotted one of the ravens inside the crevice which now had what looked like nesting material in it--the photograph of that is the second pic here. I continued off and on to check this apparent crevice nest. At the end of May I saw what appeared to be a nestling inside the crevice. I continued birding in the riparian forest across the Arkansas River from this cliff area. When I was about a quarter mile away I heard a lot of raven racket and walked to a spot where I could see the cliff area through my binoculars. I could see a lot of raven action with the parent birds calling loudly so I expected that the nestling may have fledged or they were trying to get it to fledge. I went back t...
Read more

Band-tailed Pigeons, the mountain pigeons

-
Image
I spotted a small flock of about 9 or 10 of these Band-tailed Pigeons in a tiny unincorporated town called Greenwood which is south of Canon City about 20 miles (via winged flight). The homes in Greenwood are right up against the San Isabel National Forest and forests are the habitat for these mountain pigeons. The white collar on the nape of this species can be seen in the pic above.  The broad pale gray terminal band on a darker upper tail (and below the light undertail coverts) is best seen in pic below.  SeEtta
Read more