ML636265655

Beobachtungsdetails

A well worn apparent juvenile bird of the southern nominate subspecies T. savana savana (i.e., it hatched in the most recent austral spring or summer, our last fall and winter, deep in South America). Heavily worn rectrices, with left R6 broken and a pale fault bar visible across the inner rects. White outer webs on the strikingly elongated R6 feathers. Mantle and tail mostly brownish, with white underparts and throat and a contrasting blackish head. Hindneck did not have a contrasting pale collar. Head on, the bird showed an asymmetrical patch of pale gray-brown feathers running from the bill up toward the crown, seemingly remnants of older, paler juvenile feathers that were otherwise being replaced with blacker head plumage. One or two tiny spots of yellow crown feathers often just visible as well. For most of my stay, the bird hunted actively across the tops of the grasses in spectacular fashion, darting and hovering and coming to rest briefly on slender stems. It was sometimes alone and sometimes in the (uneasy?) company of Eastern Kingbirds, which were quite substantially heavier bodied and much blacker in plumage. The bird also made a couple of visits to a fruiting white mulberry in the back corner of the range, which is where it was hiding when I arrived (I spotted it there shortly before it flew back out into the grassland to feed in the open). Unclear whether it ever fed directly on fruit—the species will consume fruit, according to Birds of the World—or simply used the tree for shelter, etc. This occurrence fits the pattern of T. s. savana birds migrating from southern South America to central/northern South America for the austral winter and dramatically overshooting their wintering grounds because of atmospheric conditions or other factors to arrive in eastern North America. All the adjectives and adverbs, etc. Congratulations to Karen Becker for the find and many thanks to Brendan Fogarty and Mary Beth Kooper for the follow-up. Lots of camaraderie in the soggy field.