Subject: odd bird in Stanley Park
Date: Nov 11 20:40:23 2002
From: Netta Smith - nettasmith at attbi.com


A friend of mine, Len Lewicki, was walking in Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC,
on Saturday, 9 November, and saw a bird he couldn't identify. He called me
and asked me about it, and I have no idea what it was. He saw it right from
the seawall just west of Second Beach. He heard a whistled sound that he
didn't recognize and finally located the bird 10' up in a tree. As he was
watching it, it flew down and landed on the ground 5' from him, and he got
good close looks at it. He said he thought it was surprisingly tame
(escaped captive?).

He said the bird was about towhee size. Much of it was gray, a light to
medium gray (female junco gray?), perhaps a little darker around the lores.
The wings and tail were olive-green, and he said he thought if the sun had
been shining they might have looked a bit iridescent. The sides were rusty,
paler than the rufous on the side of a towhee but similarly arranged. The
tail had white tips, at least the outer feathers. There were no other
markings. Some of the features sound quite towhee-like, but he said the
bill definitely was smaller, not a sparrow bill, and the bird lacked white
spots on the wings and didn't have a white belly. The bill was dark, the
legs and feet obviously pink.

Although not a hotshot birder, he knows the common local birds, and this one
stumped him, as it does me. I can't even figure out what kind of escaped
captive it might be!

If anyone knows about this bird, please let me know. If not, see if you can
find it!

Dennis Paulson
--
Netta Smith and Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115