ML142005381

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Media notes

Center foreground, This bird is the most colorful one I was able to get any photo of.

Observation details

(Rare): bin-photos & audio ; flock found by Judy who pulled over to the water couple minutes before we did: [“I diverted to pull off beside the watering hole near Brothers, I had a small flock take to the air as I arrived. I heard a rattle. Started to track down the flock again and Joel and Courtney came by after finalizing their raptor route. ... it looked like 3 possible longspurs, at least birds that were not Larks, were in the flock when they called and took to the air again. I did see one bird closely while on the ground and it looked like winter plumaged Lapland Longspur.”] after 5-min we all saw a flock up in air and land down, heard rattles, birds up and down a few times, difficult viewing trying to get onto the birds, as they were landing deep in and under grass clumps, though so near to us; JM saw one well enough to ID as a LALO, then she took off to do a raptor route, leaving Joel and I (excited) to try to figure the rest of this flock out. Joel and I spent at least 35-min. with the flock before “I’m frozen” we had to leave, very cold “22-degree” (~ 12-16 F) to be standing outside still so long, fingers so cold they hurt painfully once we got back into car and pressed them against heat. Joel and I never saw any HOLA, and I never heard a HOLA sure singled out from flock. 15 birds counted in flight, and of dozens of views of single birds, all were LALO: Viewing difficult with birds in grasses, but they did move around quite a bit, and we did have near views, every bird we could see well enough to ID, was a LALO. Dozens of views of these confirmed. LALO in several plumages, a challenge for me, I’ve never seen any longspur before except for LALO, which was a Life Bird in Sept., and of my fall 2018 total 7 records of 27 individuals, most heard-only, the only LALO seen well were all “basic immature”. But today, we had some birds like nearly in adult male plumage! with strong earth-red necks and black on caps and blacker around and in cheeks and upper breasts, ... and these and other birds with strong Buffy colors in face, and some birds extremely Buffy faced without really the red or black, etc. — at least 3 different plumages. I said at first, “This is either a new bird for me, or a new plumage.” We checked apps & field guides, looking for what marks to really look for, despite plumages : to focus on : 1. if ruddy in wings (yes is LALO), 2. the dark-cheek-outline shape, whether a L or a U, (U is LALO), 3. bill size (thicker for LALO), 4. no striking white in tail is LALO. Every bird we saw well fit for LALO. We never saw any bright white flashing in tails in flight. Flock appeared ~ uniform in flight, though: 1-3 birds in flight did appear slightly smaller than the others: this is something Judy noted too, but she assumed 3 were poss LALO amidst dozen HOLA; I now think, if a few were indeed different, might be poss a different kind of longspur amidst dozen LALO; however: we never ID’d any besides LALO, and no distinctly different calls than all the other LALO, (though I did a long recording, so if you can pick out a different vocal from LALO chorus, please let me know) Never saw all birds lined up for easy scanning/comparison, so poss a Chestnut-collared or Mccown’s could be mixed in, half lost in grasses, esp because I was struggling with ID-ing new plumages, of mostly-grassy bodies! Note: I don’t know if Judy ever saw any definite HOLA in her flock, or whether she just assumed HOLA because so rare to have so many LALO here? If she did see some HOLA, there was more than one flock here. Note: of ~ 22 prev. LALO ebird records for Deschutes Co., only 1 other was more than 1-4 birds: 10/06/2003 at Wickiup: 25. In all of eastern Oregon, there are only 3 other records of more than 8 birds: 12, 13, 15.

Technical information

Model

iPhone 6 Plus

Lens

iPhone 6 Plus back camera 4.15mm f/2.2

ISO

32

Focal length

4.2 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/2.2

Shutter speed

1/1412 sec

Dimensions

2723 pixels x 2192 pixels

Original file size

2.05 MB