Hi all --

When I saw this longspur on Monday, I was lucky enough to get a front-on
view of the belly for about 10 seconds, while the bird was stretching up
very high to peck at some seeds above his head. As soon as it got into
that posture, I saw a VERY apparent patch of solid black on its belly,
grading into a more subtle area of barred black on its breast, which in
turn graded into a completely buffy throat.

The black area was large and striking. I had been watching the bird
closely, at close range (10 feet) in good light, for about 30 minutes and
I didn't see the black until the bird faced me and stretched up. I
suspect the black may be invisible to most birders because of the way the
bird forages low in the grass and seems to tend to walk away from people.
(Though overall, it was a very mellow bird and seemed unconcerned by our
presence.)

I doubt a female would have THAT much black on her belly. Some barring,
maybe, but a solid black patch?

Re the nape -- in Lapland longspurs, the chestnut nape and the black
breast bib are formed by feather wear of white-tipped (bib) and
buffy-tipped (nape) feathers. If chestnut-collareds work the same way,
the chestnut on this bird may be be covered by still-intact buffy tips.
(In Laplands, females have similar-colored feathers but the pale tips
appear to be longer and rarely wear down enough to expose much of the
black & chestnut underneath. And, just to complete the picture, in males,
the throat, chin, lore, and much of the crown all undergo a molt in
spring, triggered by long daylenghths.)

Re the NGS illustrations: Yup, this bird was MUCH paler than the male
illustrated in NGS, but the NGS illustrations aren't super for longspurs,
and there's lots of variation in longspurs anyway that cannot be covered
by just a few illustrations. Anyone else notice that the female Lapland
looks like her head was run over by a truck? Her eye is cramped, her bill
is shrunken, and her whole eye-bill gestalt is warped. Perhaps she was
drawn from a photo of a bird that was looking slightly to the side.

cheers,
Kathleen Hunt / U. Washington - Zoology / jespah at u.washington.edu