Re: Chatfield/Loveland Brant and eBird

[Derek Hill]

COBirds,

Happy to hear the Brant - assuming it's the same bird - has been refound in a different location. Having extremely limited experience with Branta, namely a few distant flocks of Black Brant in coast OR/WA years ago, I will take the word of Mlodinow and my friend Leukering in calling this bird a Gray-bellied Brant. Pretty cool to have this rare bird show up in CO and be so cooperative for so many birders.  However, after great closeup looks at this bird on land and in water, and then reading Mlodinow's definitive article - which I have a .pdf copy willing to share unless that's a no-no and please let me know if so - and googling images of Atlantic Brant, I still feel completely inept picking apart Gray-bellied from Atlantic Brant in the field.  And again I have seen absolutely zero Atlantic or Gray-bellieds in my life, besides this recent CO bird.  If Tony says it would stand out on the east coast that is good enough for me. Have a few old photos on flickr that show the bird walking on land with the belly/breast contrast pretty visible. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/26102738@N07/>.  Google image search is notorious for mislabeled/misidentified birds but I am struggling to find differences between the Atlantics and our CO bird.

Fill us in with more field ID tips experts!

Good birding & Merry Christmas,
Derek Hill
Fort Collins

[Derek Hill]

For instance, looking at Mlodinow's flickr photostream here:

Gray-bellied with Black
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36088296@N08/10684555344/

Atlantic
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36088296@N08/10684836493/

and another pic of the CO bird:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26102738@N07/10664340345/

Requesting advice on how these birds differ

Derek

[Rob Parsons]

Derek, and all,

 

I don’t believe these particular photos by Steve Mlodinow are the best to illustrate differences.  Note his comments re the injured ‘Gray-bellied’ Brant: “This Gray-bellied Brant is on the very pale side of that population and is probably indistinguishable from Atlantic Brant (subspecies hrota).”

 

For the captive Atlantic Brant he says: “Such a bird as this would be indistiinguishable from the pale end of Gray-bellied Brant phenotype.”

 

And unfortunately the Colorado bird does appear to in the (if I can be forgiven for saying this) *gray* area.  (Couldn’t resist a pun—I know, the lowest form of humor.)

 

Cheers,

 

Rob Parsons
Winnipeg, MB
CANADA
pars...@mts.net

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