Forwarded
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From: "Thomas Love" <tlove at linfield.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2010 7:26 AM
To: <obol at oregonbirds.org>
Subject: [OBOL] White Wagtail - Bonneville Dam?

> I know, weird... But on a class fieldtrip Th afternoon, 29 April, as we
> drove in the entrance frontage road about 3:00 for a tour of the
> Washington side of Bonneville Dam, about halfway from the turnoff from
> Hwy. 14 back east to the entrance check station, on the left in the wide,
> low grass strip, a very gray and black slim bird suddenly flushed from
> about 20 feet away (I was driving) directly away to the left. It flushed
> from the grass in a quick bound. My immediate thought was Loggerhead
> Shrike, given the mix of colors and the season/location, but immediately
> it was clear it was not only slimmer and smaller but also behaviorally all
> wrong, and of course the habitat was highly improbable. I couldn't stop,
> and besides the bird had flown and would have taken more time than I could
> have stolen from the trip to pursue it.
>
> I've been turning this over and over in my mind ever since, and though I'm
> somewhat hesitant even to report such a brief sighting, there are so few
> candidates for what this bird might have been that I thought it might be
> worth running up the flagpole. Maybe Wilson or someone can get up there
> today to check this.
>
> Weather conditions: sun break between heavy showers, light from SW
> (behind and left, I was looking north). Single bird, flushed rather
> explosively from short mown grass strip as described above.
>
> Description: slim, sparrow-sized (6-8 inches?) lone bird, primarily black
> tail, gray back, wings mix of black/gray/white but the overall impression
> was very black on tail and gray on back. Seemed slim for a sparrow.
> Window was up so did not hear vocalization if there was one.
>
> I kept trying to make this into a McCown's Longspur (equally odd), given
> the color scheme, but it really was a shrike combination of colors, and
> the tail wasn't longspur-like. The overall jizz is wagtail. I can't
> think of another candidate that comes even close. I have seen White
> Wagtail in Alaska, and am familiar with several wagtail species in SE
> Asia.
>
> Could someone please forward this to Tweeters?
>
> Tom Love
> tlove AT linfield DOT edu
> 503-936-3172 cell
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