Interesting Variations of Common Birds at the Monte Vista Crane Festival, Rio Grande County - Plus Tidbits

[kevyg...@aol.com]

Hello Fellow Birders,

   Saw a few interesting variants during the MVCF this past weekend:

-  A melanisitic Lesser Sand Hill Crane whose neck and head feathers looked 'terrible'.  Speculation was that it might have feather lice.

-  A white-headed Redhead duck.  This year-old female was a real trick to identify; my companion and I finally pegged her as a partially leucistic female Redhead because she was in the company of a standard male Redhead and her body feathers were consistent with a female Redhead.  But how, you might ask, did we know she was a year-old bird?  Well, when I described her to a USFWS person who works on the Refuge he said he'd banded a juvenile female Redhead with a white head last year!

- A Cinammon/Blue-winged Teal hybrid was seen and photographed by several people (not me, I just saw the photos).

Tidbits:

- There were still all three species of Rosy-finches at the Hochstettler property.

- Lots of Mountain Bluebirds moving through.

- A paucity of raptor species, but lots of Red-tailed Hawks and Great-horned Owls.  One Prairie Falcon, one Bald Eagle, One Rough-legged Hawk, a couple of American Kestrels.  I saw no Ferruginous Hawks, Merlins, Peregrines or Golden eagles - all species I've seen there in past years.

Keep Smilin',

Kevin Corwin

Sent from my Remington Rand Typewriter via my Rotary Dial Wall Phone