On Thu, 12 May 2005 22:05:50 -0700, Richard Johnson wrote: Joe, Thanks for emailing the photos. My first reaction was that it was a female Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, but I delayed my response until I had time to give it a more careful examination, since separation of female Gray-crowns (GC's) and Brown-caps (BC's) is sometimes tricky. I've now done that and remain of the same opinion. My reasons are as follows. The gray area on the head is wider that occurs in BC's, and is also more gray (less or no melanins in the barbs) and the gray is a more uniform gray than in BC's. In BC's the gray is darker in the center of each feather and lighter at the edges, but in GC's the gray is uniform from edge to edge of each "gray" feather (except sometimes for feathers on the back of the neck or along the very edge of the black cap). Also, at this date (April 24), due to wear, a BC would show no gray at all, whereas a female GC would. A second trait that pretty much confirms the ID is that the bill is so small. BC's have a bigger bill, both longer, and proportionately thicker. I wouldn't usually expect to be able to detect this difference when using photos, but with two sharp photos from the side like these, and with the head turned at slightly different angles, one can get a pretty accurate idea of size and shape. This trait would not allow separation of BC's from GC's from the Rocky Mountains (which also have fairly large bills), but it does from GC's of the Sierra (subspecies dawsoni) which have a distinctly smaller, and proportionately thinner bill than the others. Anyway, the bill appeared small, so I got out a drawer of Sierra GC's and a like number of BC's, and compared each specimen of each species to the photo, to confirm this. This bird has a dawsoni bill, thus surely cannot be a BC. I'm never 100% convinced from photos, but I lean 95+% sure that it isn't a BC. Hope this helps. Let me know if there are questions, or you or others think there are reasons to came to another conclusion. Dick Johnson Dr. Richard E. Johnson Conner Museum & School of Biological Sciences Washington State University Pullman, WA 99164-4236 johnsonre@wsu.edu