I saw at least six pictures from the front--none showed a SOLID black
breast. Is it possible that from certain angles the black barring would
hide the white? The bird in the pictures definitely didn't have a solid
black breast, but it did have a lot more black barring than I expected
after not seeing much black at all from the side. Also no one has
responded yet about which sex is more likely to be this far from home.
Maybe there just isn't any data on this kind of thing.
wjansen

On Wed, 6 Dec 1995, Kathleen Hunt wrote:

>
> 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
>
>