Subject: Mystery birds
Date: Aug 25 13:28:28 1995
From: James West - jdwest at u.washington.edu



I found the recent "mystery bird" quizz not just intriguing but valuable,
because it focused on bird behavior - something we could all pay more
attention to. In fact one of the most useful kinds of information shared
through TWEETERS, in my view, is observations on the behavior of birds and
the creatures they interact with - e.g. Dennis' Bushtits being chased from
his back yard by an overly-territorial butterfly. The quizz format makes
us think about the limitations of our usual observations. We tend to have
a "profile" of the behavior of a given species, based on what it is most
often doing _when observed by humans_, and we make use of those behavioral
profiles in locating particular species, and even in helping to identify
them in situations where other characteristics are poorly seen. But birds
spend most of their lives _not_ being observed by humans, and the full
range of the characteristic behaviors of most species is probably very
different from the impression we have or can find in the literature. Our
occasional glimpes of seldom observed behaviors are fascinating, and
valuable.

So try this one:

In September 1993, late on a warm, dry afternoon, I was driving down from
Mount Constitution on Orcas Island. The lower part of this road has a
c.6-foot-wide unpaved shoulder between the black-top and the forest
undergrowth. At one point on the shoulder there was a flock of 15 birds,
all within inches of each other, foraging in the litter. They were so busy
feeding that they were oblivious to passing cars, and didn't fly when I
pulled over a few yards from them. Eight of the birds were American
Robins. The other seven were... Not a species I ever expected to see
feeding with robins on a roadside. I drove on a few hundred yards, and
turned onto Olga Road, where there is an even wider shoulder. There I saw
two more birds, not the Mystery Species but related to it, foraging in the
litter in the same way - and just as unexpectedly. One of them was so
intent on its feeding that it foraged its way right up to my car, which
was pulled over onto the shoulder, and only then looked up. I never
expected to be staring this species in the face at point-blank range over
the hood of a Nissan Sentra.

What was the Mystery Species, and what was its relative?

_________________________________________________________________________
JAMES WEST Univ. of Washington Box 353580 Seattle WA 98195 206-543-4892