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Tweeters,

Sorry to bother you with something which has so little information,
but
it bugs me that I can't get a better idea from the field guide.

Yesterday I spent much of the afternoon on Forster island and
nearby. On
the part north of the freeway, high atop a 40-45' leafless tree near
the path
I heard and then saw a bird which seemed from the steep angle at
which
I was watching to have a yellow hood. I had 10x binocs, but every
time
I moved around to view the bird from behind, it shifted to face me.
There
seemed to be a definite horizontal boundary between the bright
yellow of
the head and the uniform whitish or light gray-white chest and
belly. No markings
at all on breast, belly or sides of belly. There seemed to be a
small amount
of black in the eye area, perhaps more toward the front of the eye.
The
part of the wings that I could see seemed to be black, or at least
be black
on the leading edge. The song was very vaguely like that of a
housefinch
but went on for much longer and with none of those trill sounds that
almost
sound like the finch is singing while breathing inward. The bird
was larger
than a house finch. There was no black under the beak that I could
see. It
flew away when I tried to a better view further out. Note that I
never did see
the top of the head, so I don't know for sure that it really had a
hood.

This is not much information to go on, I know. But I thought the
yellow hood
and the seemingly definite boundary between the yellow and white
would make it easy to pick out of the field guide, nevertheless. As
far as I
can see, the only candidate bird would be a female Bullock's oriole,
but would
a female bird sing like that?

Someday I'll know this stuff better.

Bob Mauritsen
Bluetooth at csi.com