Hi all: The Brant that Colorado birders ogled in Larimer County from late October to late November and which now appears to be in Jefferson County has been submitted to eBird by various observers as Brant, Atlantic Brant, and Gray-bellied Brant. I am writing to beseech eBird users for more consistency in reporting this individual, as it would save me time and headaches as one of the Colorado eBird reviewers.
To what form of Brant is the beast referable? While Gray-bellied Brant remains a poorly known and understood form of this waiting-to-be-split-by-the-AOU species, Colorado's own Steve Mlodinow is, perhaps, the authority on the form among birders. Steve's identification piece on Gray-bellied Brant that appeared in a 2006 issue of Birding is required reading for anyone endeavoring to identify the form in the field. Unfortunately, this article is NOT one of the ones available on the website of the American Birding Association (publisher of Birding). Perhaps, Mr. Ted Floyd can convince the powers that be to make it so available; it has been over seven years, and it would be most useful to ABA-area birders without access to hard copies of the issue (which would be most of them). Steve has posted in this venue that he believes that the Loveland Brant fits best as Gray-bellied, and not as Atlantic, which was its original field ID. While I have no field experience with Gray-bellied Brant, I have extensive experience with Atlantic Brant, and this bird would stand out like a sore thumb among Brant at Cape May, where I have seen 10s of 1000s. The only real concern about the bird being identified as a Gray-bellied Brant is over the possibility of Brant hybrids. However, the bird appears to be a card-carrying, middle-of-the-road Gray-bellied Brant, and I see no need to invoke hybridization to explain its appearance. Steve also believes that the bird currently at Chatfield SP (Jefferson Co.) is the same individual as was in Loveland in November, and my quick perusal of pix of it at the two places seems to indicate -- 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 cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/8D0C970716B1463-1200-1D6FC%40webmail-d255.sysops.aol.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
