Subject: [Tweeters] Hybrid Black/American Oystercatcher question
Date: Mar 15 19:11:38 2015
From: Hal Michael - ucd880 at comcast.net


Last October we were down at the Western Field Ornithologist's annual meeting in San Diego. On a pelagic trip we saw a number of Oystercatchers, one of which on first glace was American. The experts there were able to point out the various (small) signs of hybridization. If I recall, the conventional wisdom was that most "Americans" seen north of Mexico were hybrid.

Hal Michael
Olympia WA
360-459-4005 (H)
360-791-7702 (C)
ucd880 at comcast.net

----- Original Message -----

I have a question for those of you with experience birding Southern California. I photographed what appeared to me, to be an American Oystercatcher in Ventura Harbor on Friday. I was on a boat and did not get optimal angles on the bird, it was kinda facing away. I backtracked to the spot when I got off the boat but the bird was gone. I saw a white underside and just assumed American, not sure if I got much of the breast. Now sitting at the airport I did some googling and found some articles on hybrids in this area. I am going to upload photos in a couple days but I was wondering what the odds are of the bird being a hybrid and not a pure American Oystercatcher in that area.

Link to confusing article:
http://seagullsteve.blogspot.com/2013/06/americanish-oystercatchers-hybrids-vs.html?m=1


Thanks and have a great day
Michael Charest
Tacoma,Washington
Mcharest at wamail.net

Sent from my phone. Please ignore bad or non-existent punctuation, bad grammar, and spelling errors.

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