ML619606491
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Observation details
5-27-2024 edit (back from my trip) - At about 10 AM I was standing near the end of the (mostly) paved main road into the Cove, a bit west of the bridge leading into the main grove of trees, using Merlin to help me sort out some migrant passerines in the dense foliage separating me from the main grove. Suddenly a low trill I didn't recognize came from the other side of the foliage. Almost immediately I moved east to get into position to look for the source. The trilling (with short interruptions) continued for perhaps 10 or so seconds as I moved (wrecking, in retrospect, my best recording opportunity - first one below). By the time I could see where the trilling had come from it’d stopped. Realizing only then that Merlin was still running, I looked down to see Lesser Nighthawk on the long list of suggestions. Right - not here, I just saw those in Brazil. But after saving the recording and playing the first LENI song, was gobsmacked to hear the same trill. Still incredulous, I started my nighthawk search - and pretty quickly found one roosting on a very long limb parallel with and perhaps 25 feet off the ground - and since I was on a small rise (next to the blue sign) the bird seemed eye-ish level. (From later reports I gather it's mostly been seen in a much more difficult tree west of the bridge, where it had moved before I left that day.) I rarely see perched Common Nighthawks, and even more rarely study them, but my initial impression was this bird looked more buffy than a darkly-colored CONI would be. I didn’t initially find the Merlin pics that helpful, but this bird was a dead ringer for the LENI picture on Songs USA - much buffier than CONI, with a few lines of spotting on the wing and shoulder that I didn’t see in the CONI pictures. I reluctantly left the bird, and went to get my scope for photos and to make some calls. Deb Essman came down with better resources, and together we worked through the LENI/CONI plumage differences, especially the placement of the white near the end of the wing being further back near the tertials, and the buffy spots barely visible on the primaries along the bottom edge of the wing. At that point we were convinced, so I submitted the ebird report to get the word out. Eventually the bird vocalized while we observed it, eliminating any lingering doubts and confirming that this was the bird that I'd initially heard, and allowing the final 2 recordings below. And it even flew around the grove briefly, giving us the opportunity to see the placement of the white wing bars further out on the underwing, landing a couple of times before finally settling into the tree east of the bridge - where it remained when I left.
Technical information
- Recorder
- Microphone
- Accessories
- Original file size
- 1.12 MB