Posted by Gary Poter (65.160.83.194) on May 30, 2002 at 12:18:14:
Mark makes some good points concerning habitat. Kristie makes some very good points concerning this as a fledgling. I am now totally confused. I'm not sure what this thing is, but I do think that the apparent white in the outer rectrices is real. Both photos show light (white) outer webs to the rectrices, even though the left photo is in vegetation & is apparently not back lit. Also, the upper end of the right (left on the photo) retrix has the tip of the wing behind it, and therefore should not look whitish if that phenomonon is caused by back lighting. In fact this part looks to my eye as the whitest part of this feather. Therefore I conclude that the white outer web is real. This brings us back to Junco, but this is obviously an unstreaked youngster, which is very unjunco-like. I'm looking foreword to more ideas & comments on this one. Very interesting!