HI Eric et al.:
The solitarius under the Blue-headed Vireo refers to that subspecies vs.
alticola. My only complaint about this plate is the kinglet leg/foot color
is still wrong:it should be yellow vs. the pale blue in the vireos. I
guess I'am in the minority in liking the darker colors especially in the
range maps. I colors were too pale in my copy of the 2nd. In case anyone
is interested here are my picks and pans on the new plates:
A) Like:
Loons
Albatrosses
Petrels
Shearwaters
Boobies
Little Egret
Plegadis Ibises
Buteos page 115 mainly
Hobby
Pluvialis Plovers
Plovers page 156
Curlews
Sanderling, Dunlin, Knots, etc
Sandpipers page 178
Dowitchers
Snipe, Woodcock, etc
Phalaropes
various Gulls additions
Doves page 236
Swifts
Old World Flycatchers
" " Thrushes page 345
New World Thrushes
Thrashers
pipits
Tanagers
Towhees
Meadowlark/Bobolink
orioles
House Sparrow,etc

Dislikes:
winter western/clark's grebe (too pale)
flying hawks (better than the 2nd but still not quite right)
Plain Chachalaca (especially the bird in flight)
Skuas (the jizz seems all wrong to me)
Parrots(especially the birds in flight)
Whip-poor-will( The head of the male looks croped off!)
Olive-sided Flycatcher(the smaller figure doesn't look to scale with the
tree it is perched on)
Empidonax Flycatchers(too cartoonish for me, but still a major improvement
over the 2nd)
Myiarchus Flycatchers (same as for Empidonax Flycatchers)
Island Scrub-Jay/Mexican Jay (look too hunchbacked to me)
Winter Wren:pacificus type(does that really look like OUR Winter Wrens?)
Sharp-tailed/Le Conte's Sparrows(the colors look too soft to me)

Overall I think it is a vast improvement over the 2nd. But that is just my
OPINION. Let the Fur(AH FEATHERS) fly.
Sincerely

Ian Paulsen
Bainbridge Is., WA
ipaulsen at linknet.kitsap.lib.wa.us
"Rallidae all the way"