Photos are now available for review for the reported Bendire's Thrasher south of Higbee, CO. The photos were taken by Linda Pittman of Sacramento, CA during a brief encounter with a medium-sized thrasher that crossed the road from east to west in front of our van, and then alighted atop a cholla cactus. From there it flew to another cholla and then to a dirt mound before flying off to the west. It never sang. The encounter lasted long enough for me to get out and set up a scope on it. This occurred at a bridge over a dry wash. At the roadside by the bridge were numerous large seed pods strewn along the road, resembling silver Christmas tree ornaments. The GPS coordinates were +037.60273, -103.33090. On Google Maps, the wash is labeled "Lindsey Canyon" and is located about 10 miles south of the Purgatoire River on Hwy 109, about midway between La Junta and Kim. The photos are low quality (I am amazed Linda was able to get any photos at all!). They can be reviewed on-line at http://lsp.smugmug.com/Photography/Colorado-2014/ . I am afraid that the photos themselves do not identify this bird, but I do think that they corroborate (especially image #5, IMG1783_1) what we saw in the field (or maybe I am using my imagination, i.e. wishful thinking!). I believe they show a bird that is plain-winged, with a heavy but short bill that puts the bill between that of Sage and Curve-billed Thrashers. Furthemmore, the photos fail to show a dark malar. Both Curve-billed and Sage, unlike Bendire's, should show wing-bars and a blackish malar. Anyway the photos are available for Cobirds readers to view and draw their own conclusions. I will submit some of these photos along with a description to the CBRC for documentation purposes, although I don't expect these photos are adequate to support our claim of Bendire's Thrasher. Hopefully, it sticks around and can be appropriately documented.
Nick Komar Fort Collins, CO -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/191708760.33269670.1398785976825.JavaMail.root%40comcast.net. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
