ML105548931

Age and sex

Adult, Unknown sex - X

Media notes

This is my best digiscoped photo, bird the trio was seen much better in the field by us, and was studied extensively after the fact, from others who captured better photos of the wintering family group in the days just before and after our visit

Observation details

**Rare; three birds (two adults, one juvenile) continue. 6/25/18 Update---- I have reviewed both my photos and photos of others (but mainly photos of others since mine are rather poor) and believe that these birds are indeed assignable to the Greenland race, the most expected form in CT. Here is my reasoning based on an analysis of this family group of birds: 1) Dark orange bills evident, where most North American birds have paler orange to mostly pinkish bill color. 2) Overall darker brown compared to NA birds, which are considerably paler. Very dark heads and necks are clearly visible on these birds- this is a classic field mark for Greenland race birds. 3.) Neck is fairly thick, giving off a bulky appearance- another typical Greenland characteristic, and finally 4.) Greenland birds (adults) have reduced white fringes to the upperpart feathers, whereas NA birds usually have fairly bold white markings here that give off a different overall "feel" compared to Greenland birds, especially with other characteristics in mind/studied as well. https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S26642255 This checklist from Russ Smiley shows the same trio in excellent light to be able to analyze field marks to make the Greenland determination, as well as many other pictures from other lists. While unrelated to any physical field mark, another idea in favor of Greenland here is the fact that these three birds appear to be a family group. Over the winter, I had an email conversation with Marshall Iliff about GWFG subspecies in the Northeast, and he said that Greenland birds commonly travel in family groups such as this, as these percentage of birds make their way south from Greenland to the Northeast USA late fall into the winter.

Technical information

Model

XT1254

ISO

80

Focal length

4.8 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/2.0

Shutter speed

833/50000 sec

Dimensions

3192 pixels x 1910 pixels

Original file size

1.25 MB