ML372264841

Age and sex

Juvenile, Unknown sex - 1

Media notes

This appears to be a juvenile/1st winter bird due to all of the crisp, clean and generally fresh looking feathers.

Observation details

Continuing. 1st winter bird found on the large sandbar/island at the mouth of the Winooski River. Quiet call notes heard which alerted me to this birds' location. I was able to get a few photos from behind this bird. Zooming in on the photo below shows the upper parts of this bird quite nicely. One can see the following wing parts: I'm starting with the tertials (3 wide feathers on either side of rump). They are black with wide rufous colored edges. Then one can see 3, maybe even 4 secondary wing tips, shown just above the primaries and to the right of the tertials. 8 primary wingtips can be seen with P8 & P7 showing longer lengths than the others. This helps to eliminate McGowan's, Chestnut-collared & Smith's Longspurs because those species would show 3, or 4 primary wingtips. Also seen are at least 5 greater coverts. They are also black with rufous colored edges and overlap the tertials & secondary feathers. Just above those are 3 easily visible median coverts which are black with white edges. All of the feathers above mentioned show white edges as well. The mantle & scapulars (or back of the bird) blend together and show 2 white "braces". The cheek & supercilium are buffy colored, with the cheek surrounded on three sides by a u-shaped black frame. This was my first Lapland Longspur seen at this location. It is also my first time ever seeing this species in VT during the month of September.

Technical information

Model

Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

ISO

160

Focal length

68.4 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/5.6

Shutter speed

1/250 sec

Dimensions

2490 pixels x 1992 pixels

Original file size

2.03 MB