ML624235970

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Wow - completely random while I was watching the YBFL. I noticed a flash of bright color out of my periphery and looked up to see this handsome hatch-year grosbeak looking at me. At the very moment, I only recognized the characteristic grosbeak white and black wings and just photographed for a decent documentary shot of RBGR. After only five photos, it took off and I never even got binocular looks. However, you can imagine my surprise when I reviewed my photos afterwards and realized my friend wasn’t the expected species. The dark orange supercilium, belly, flanks, nape, and head were so striking, and I’m certain that’s what caught my eye, if not the yellow/black wing flash, although I can’t say for sure at this point. A closer examination of the flanks showed very, very minimal streaking and absolutely none on the breast, which is a trademark of Black-headed vs. Rose-breasted. I edited the photo only for clarity and turned down some of the warm tones to show that the orange coloration is, in fact, true and what I saw with my naked eye. When I overexpose the photo, there is no trace of pink on the shoulders or in the breast that would suggest hybrid with RBGR. My only personal concern with it is that the orange doesn’t extend fully down to the vent like it should. However, an obsessive dive in Macaulay library showed that young birds have a wide range of variation in the presence of orange on the lower part of the flanks. Additionally, zooming in shows that the bird seems to have some orange molting into this areas, so it’ll be a beautiful adult male Black-headed by next spring. No version of Rose-breasted (male/female/immature/juvenile/fledgling) has this amount of orange in the face and especially supercilium and is an exact match for a few I saw out west in AZ this time a year ago. Any hybrids of this species seem to always show extensive flank streaking of which this bird shows a single dotted line, hardly enough to call ‘streaked’. I got five photos and posted them all. Last one shows the clean flanks and breast the best. Reduced photo warmth to show actual orange color in the field as seen by my own eyes.

Technical information

Model

NIKON D7500

Lens

150.0-600.0 mm f/5.0-6.3

ISO

2000

Focal length

600 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/7.1

Shutter speed

1/2000 sec

Dimensions

2114 pixels x 1409 pixels

Original file size

3.24 MB