John,

I don't know if someone else has already responded, as I get tweeters
in digest form, so I'm always behind the curve.

But your bird is either an Arctic (arcticola) or Cascades (alpina)
Horned Lark, I would say. Probably more likely the former, which is a
bit paler. Presumably a female, and there is a lot more sexual
dimorphism in Horned Larks than most people realize. The great
majority of photos and illustrations we see are of males.

It's not the coastal subspecies strigata or the interior subspecies
merrilli and lamprochroma. The first two are washed with yellow below,
especially so in strigata, and all are darker above; strigata is also
much more reddish.

Dennis


On Nov 4, 2009, at 12:00 PM, tweeters-
request at mailman2.u.washington.edu wrote:

> Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 01:41:53 +0000 (UTC)
> From: johntubbs at comcast.net
> Subject: [Tweeters] HORNED LARK - Marymoor Park
> To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> I made a brief stop this afternoon at the Marymoor dirt piles to
> look for the American Tree Sparrow - unsuccessfully.? In keeping
> with that part of the park's reputation, there were a lot of
> sparrows moving around, and I got very nice looks at a White-
> throated Sparrow (plus Lincoln's, White-crowned, Golden-crowned and
> Song).? The most interesting bird, however, was a HORNED LARK
> (HOLA) that was picking grit immediately to the north of the dirt
> piles.? I wasn't initially 100% sure that it was a HOLA because it
> definitely did not look like the prototypical adult bird of the
> species.? Specifically, it lacked any yellow wash on the throat,
> had some streaking on the belly (rather than white), was distinctly
> striped and marked on the back versus the faint/flat typical
> plumage, and lacked the "horns".? The size, posture, bill and head
> markings fit HOLA, however.? I sent the images to Michael Hobbs who
> confirmed HOLA.? Neither Michael or I are well-versed in variations
> of HOL!
> A plumage, however it may be a hatch-year bird and possibly of the
> arctic subspecies, which apparently lacks the yellow wash.? A link
> to the first of two passable? images I took of the bird follows
> (click Next to see the second one) - http://www.tubbsphoto.com/-/tubbsphoto/detail.asp?photoID=9328570&cat=38987
> .? Hopefully one of the experts monitoring the list will be able
> to provide some info on this species' plumage variations.
>
> John Tubbs
>
> Snoqualmie, WA

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20091104/2b651d98/attachment.htm