ML24562081

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Species: Varied Bunting Date: 13 October 2015 Location: Fiesta Island dog run, San Diego County Habitat: open disturbed area predominantly covered in tumbleweed (Salsola sp.) Weather: warm, sunny Observer/photographer: Matt Sadowski Optics: 10x50 Leicas & 400mm Canon lens on a Canon 50D body At about 0855 I heard a passerina bunting “spit” or “spik” call coming from a clump of tumbleweed near the south entrance to the Fiesta Island dog run. When approached the bird flew to another large tumbleweed and buried itself at the base. This repeated itself for about another 20 minutes during which time I was only once able to get views through my binoculars of a small brown passerine moving at the base of a tumbleweed without seeing any details. It was the most skulky bunting I had ever encountered. Luckily the bird gave the “spik” call often so it was easy to keep track of. Eventually at 0915 it briefly popped into view in the shade of a tall berm that encircles the dog run. At that point I decided to just try to get photos instead of trying to view it through binoculars. Time stamps on the photos indicate the bird was in the open from 9:15:12 to 9:15:36 for a total of 24 seconds. It then flushed back to near the original area it was found. Browsing through the photos on the back of the camera screen I noticed pale edging to the tips of the greater coverts and a slightly warmer coloration on the median coverts. Some of the photos seemed to show blue in the tail (in bright sunny daylight, not the ideal conditions for viewing photos on the back of a camera) but this was not the case once viewed on a computer screen. Other birders that were nearby looking at other rarities also looked at the photos on the camera and the bird was tentatively identified as an Indigo Bunting. The bird was re-found by myself and a few others an hour or two later but seen only as it flushed. The area where we thought it may have landed and other areas that we searched produced nothing. Upon returning home and viewing the photos properly on a computer screen I noticed the strongly curved culmen and speculated that it might be a Varied Bunting. I have almost zero experience with female-type Varied Buntings and very limited experience with Indigo Buntings but for what it's worth here are some points. Features that look good for Varied Bunting: strongly curved culmen short primary projection apparently unstreaked underparts (admittedly not the greatest angles) Features that are problematic: pale edging to the greater coverts The latter feature may not be that big of a problem from my perusal of female-type Varied Buntings online. Richard Webster also commented to me that he sees one or two pale wingbars on some females in Arizona. Below are several photos. I leave it in the hands of the CBRC. This VABU and another on Pt. Loma in early November were accepted by the CBRC as the first records for San Diego County.

Technical information

Model

Canon EOS 50D

Lens

EF400mm f/5.6L USM

ISO

1600

Focal length

400 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/5.6

Shutter speed

1/750 sec

Dimensions

1059 pixels x 705 pixels

Original file size

686.89 KB