Hi Tweeters:
I thought tweeters might be interested in this!
Sincerely
Ian Paulsen
Bainbridge Is.,WA

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 10:01:19 -0700
From: DJLauten and KACastelein <birdsong at HARBORSIDE.COM>
To: BIRDWG01 at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Re: [BIRDWG01] murrelets

I just happened to collect a freshly dead Xantus' Murrelet off the beach at
Coos Bay OR a few days ago. So I just checked the now frozen specimen in
my freezer to see if indeed the wingtips fall well short of the tip of the
tail. While I realize n=1 here, and the specimen is frozen at the moment,
it appears that the wingtips come to the tip of the tail and are not
clearly shorter than the tip of the tail, but they are not longer either.
Again I realize this is a frozen specimen which is not ideal, but the
specimen is in perfect shape and is not in any kinked position that would
throw off the wing tip length. A small sample, but I hope it helps.

David J. Lauten
birdsong at harborside.com

----------
> From: David Sibley <dsibley at bellatlantic.net>
> To: BIRDWG01 at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
> Subject: [BIRDWG01] murrelets
> Date: Sunday, June 28, 1998 8:25 AM
>
> I was recently looking over a copy of the new book "The Auks" by Anthony
> Gaston and Ian Jones (Oxford University Press, 1998). The book is
> excellent for both text and illustrations (by Ian Lewington) and I
> highly recommend it. The illustrations, in fact, show a lot of field
> identification details that are NOT described in the text, and I have
> two questions about these.
>
> Long-billed Murrelet, treated here as a subspecies of Marbled, is
> illustrated on plates 3 and 8 with mottled whitish underwing coverts,
> unlike the uniform dark coverts of Marbled. This is the first I've heard
> of this potentially very useful field mark, and I wonder if anyone can
> confirm it.
>
> Less significant, Craveri's Murrelet is illustrated on plate 4 with the
> wingtips nearly reaching the tail tip, while the Xantus' is shown with
> the wingtips falling well short of the tail tip. Again I wonder if
> anyone can confirm this. Before dismissing this as an impossibly minute
> and esoteric detail, consider that longer wings on Craveri's would often
> cover the white undertail coverts from the side making them less visible
> even with the tail raised. So an obvious spot of white undertail coverts
> on a distant murrelet might be an indication that it is Xantus' and not
> Craveri's.... but this is just idle speculation on my part, I hope
> someone can provide some real information on this character.
>
> David Sibley
> dsibley at bellatlantic.net
> Cape May Point, NJ