I had a female type cowbird at my feeder yesterday that wasn't the typical female brown-headed. I watched it for about 15 minutes at my window feeder and just automatically said brown-headed female and didn't take a photo. Now I wish I had. It occurred to me last night while parusing my birds books that this bird may not have been a female brown-headed. It had a a dull, dark chocolate brown body, dark eye, medium length tail, and medium lengthed pointed bill. The overall look was of a very dark pudgy bird. I didn't notice an obvious ruff but that may have been from the age or posture of it. I've seen bronzed that didn't look like they have a ruff. After looking in my Sibley and other books it looked like the eastern female Bronzed Cowbird. The photo in Jaramillo & Burke of the juvenile looks almost identical to what I saw but the silouette looks more like Sibley's adult eastern female. As far as I can tell there are no plumages that look like the bird I saw in Brown-headed Cowbird. Has anyone seen a female brown-headed that looks like this?
Andrew Andrew v. F. Block Consulting Naturalist/Wildlife Biologist 37 Tanglewylde Avenue Bronxville, Westchester Co., New York 10708-3131 Phone: 914-337-1229; Fax: 914-771-8036 -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --