Hi everyone,

I've spent a little while studying the photos of this bird because I find it particularly intriguing. On first inspection, this bird screams American Redstart to me. The pattern of gray on the head as well as the distribution of some of the yellow patches etc. all seem to fit this pretty well. For a variety of reasons, however, this bird simply does not fit a pure American Redstart very well. I think this is a hybrid though I'm not sure between what.

I will just point out a couple of features for people to contemplate before I go back to studying the images (or actually being productive with my day?) One is that this bird seems to have a faint upper wingbar in several of the images. Another is the streaking on the sides, and finally is the pattern of the undertail coverts and tail. With all due respect to Michael Hobbs and his detailed dissection of the photos, I believe he is misinterpreting the tail and undertail coverts. I do not believe that the undertail coverts of this bird extend to the tip of the tail. They actually don't extend all that far and this bird is longer-tailed than I think an Oporornis warbler would be. Instead, it appears to me from the photographs that the light color is also on the underside of the retrices and extends to the tips in the center while there are dark corners. This is not at all a pattern expected on either a Redstart or an Oporornis, though there are a
number of other species which would fit this pattern from the plates in Dunna and Garrett. I do believe that the size and shape of the bill would fit an American Redstart fairly well and does not need to be explained by an Oporornis parent. I think all of these characters will be important in trying to determine what might be the identity of the other parent.

An intriguing bird for sure. Unfortunately I doubt we will ever reach a firm conclusion as to its identity at this stage of the game. I think Bob Sundstrom is on the right track and my best guess is that American Redstart is one of the parents but I'm curious to hear what other ideas might surface. Kudos to Collin for finding and documenting this bird!

Michael

Michael Dossett
Corvallis, Oregon
www.Mdossettphoto.com
phainopepla at yahoo.com