>Jack Bowling wrote:
>
>> Walked rather than hopped.

Stuart MacKay wrote:

>While not 100% sure on this I would consider a longspur rather than a
>bunting. Buntings are scrub, etc, dwellers and are more likely to hop. I know
>reed buntings do. Tundra dwelling longspurs (I'm thinking of Lapland here) are
>
>essentially ground feeding birds and therefore more likely to walk.

I wondered about this, too, although I figured perhaps the gait wasn't that
clear. But on rereading it, Jack clearly stated that it walked. In the
Birds of the Western Palearctic, it states that Rustic, Common Reed and
Little buntings all hop, although for the latter two it says "short hops
sometimes look like creep or shuffle." A really obvious walk points away
from any emberizine bunting (including our North American sparrows) except
for longspurs and Snow/McKay's (or is it MacKay's?). And (a) I assume Jack
knows what longspurs look like, (b) I wouldn't have expected one next to a
house, except perhaps in the middle of the open plains, and (c) the
description doesn't sound like any of them.

Gait also points to larks, pipits, maybe accentors, but bill shape
certainly doesn't, nor does plumage. Must have been a bunting (curiouser
and curiouser).

Get those mistnets out!

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