>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.
>
>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.

I'll just add to what Kathleen wrote that Chestnut-collared Longspurs also
change plumage by feather wear in spring. A bird that stretched way up as
she described is presumably showing more of the black feather bases on its
underparts, so it would look blacker then. Although black underparts is
typical of males, even our small sample of 5 breeding females varies from
entirely pale beneath to having almost as much black as a typical male!
Thus seeing black on the belly doesn't automatically signal "male." The
most brightly marked female in our collection also has white-tipped median
coverts and quite a bit of chestnut on the nape. I assume it's correctly
sexed because it otherwise seems to be in female plumage, and it's unlikely
to be missexed on the breeding grounds.

There are now techniques to sex birds from the balance of hormones excreted
with their feces, I believe (correct me if I'm wrong, Kathleen), so someone
had better follow that controversial bird around with a pooper scooper. Or
at least make sure it hangs around until spring.

Dennis Paulson, Director phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416