Re: Phoebes near Hygiene, Boulder Co

[Peter Burke]

Cobirders,

As Peter Gent described, we had quite the phoebe show up in NE Boulder County, with Say's, Eastern and a third individual. I've posted photos of the two Eastern Phoebes and several shots of the other guy, which may be a light male Black Phoebe, or potentially a hybrid Black X Eastern Phoebe. Things that made us consider a hybrid include the light color of bird's head -- not the jet black of a typical male Black Phoebe. There was also a faint suggestion of some white or at least light coloring near the throat. And most interestingly, the bird was initially singing the one-note song of a Black Phoebe, but later was observed attempting the two-note Eastern Phoebe song.

I'd be very interested to learn what others make of this bird.

Good birding,

Peter Burke

Boulder, Colorado

Peter Burke

935 11th St. Boulder, CO 80302

(973) 214-0140

Flickr  LinkedIn

On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 1:15 PM, Peter Gent <ge...@ucar.edu> wrote:

All,

We spent over an hour this morning at the bridge over St. Vrain Creek on Crane Hollow Road, which is about 1/2 mile west of Hygiene in north Boulder County. When we arrived, 2 Phoebes were there.  There was an Eastern Phoebe which was frequently going under the bridge, so we presumed this is a female building a nest.  Every time she flew, she was chased by another Phoebe, which we presumed was a male.  This bird has the plumage pattern of a Black Phoebe, but the dark areas are not as black as a usual Black Phoebe, but it called a single note Black Phoebe call.  We are unsure whether this is an unusual plumaged Black Phoebe or, more likely in our opinion, a hybrid Black/Eastern. After we had been there about half an hour, we first heard the usual two note Eastern Phoebe song, and then saw east of the bridge an Eastern Phoebe making this song.  We believe only the males sing, and so presumed this is a male Eastern Phoebe.  Our conclusion is there are 3 Phoebes there: a pair of Easterns plus a hybrid male Eastern/Black Phoebe, which could possibly be an unusual Black Phoebe.

This situation is very similar to when the Black Phoebe first showed up at the 75th Street bridge over Boulder Creek.  There was a pair of Eastern Phoebes already established there, and the Black Phoebe chased the presumed female Eastern Phoebe all the time.  The Black Phoebe has been there last spring and this spring, but there have been no Eastern Phoebes there, and we presume they got fed up with the Black Phoebe intrusive behavior and moved to a new location.

Some photos of these birds are attached.

Peter Gent and Peter Burke,

Boulder County.

[SeEttaM .]

Peter,

Your Other guy looks very much like the offspring of the breeding of Black and Eastern Phoebes I have observed for more than a decade in the Canon City area.  If you are interested I have photos of a some of them on my Birds and Nature blog.

If you haven't seen it you can check out more of my photos as well as Nathan Pieplow's excellent discussion of vocalizations of these hybrids in the article, "The extent of hybridization between Black and Eastern Phoebes", that he and I co-authored in Colorado Birds.

SeEtta Moss

Canon City

http://BirdsAndNature.blogspot.com

[David Waltman]

Good observations. I've studied my own photos of the Crane Hollow birds and Peter's photos and compared to several other Black Phoebe photos and can see clearly this is not a classic Black Phoebe. I don't know what the extent of plumage variations in Black Phoebe could be and what a hybrid would look like, so I'm left simply agreeing with the observations and questions posed by Peter and Peter.
David Waltman
Boulder

----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Burke <peter...@gmail.com>
To: Peter Gent <ge...@ucar.edu>, Colorado Birds <cob...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sun, 16 Apr 2017 03:32:39 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: [cobirds] Re: Phoebes near Hygiene, Boulder Co

Cobirders,
As Peter Gent described, we had quite the phoebe show up in NE Boulder
County, with Say's, Eastern and a third individual. I've posted photos of
the two Eastern Phoebes and several shots of the other guy

<https://www.flickr.com/photos/pgburke/>, which may be a light male Black

Phoebe, or potentially a hybrid Black X Eastern Phoebe. Things that made us
consider a hybrid include the light color of bird's head -- not the jet
black of a typical male Black Phoebe. There was also a faint suggestion of
some white or at least light coloring near the throat. And most
interestingly, the bird was initially singing the one-note song of a Black
Phoebe, but later was observed attempting the two-note Eastern Phoebe song.

I'd be very interested to learn what others make of this bird.

Good birding,
Peter Burke
Boulder, Colorado

Peter Burke

935 11th St. Boulder, CO 80302

(973) 214-0140

Flickr <https://www.flickr.com/gp/pgburke/0scHt9> LinkedIn
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-burke-a627885>

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[Peter Gent]

All,

We spent over an hour yesterday morning at the bridge over St. Vrain Creek on Crane Hollow Road, which is about 1/2 mile west of Hygiene in north Boulder County. When we arrived, 2 Phoebes were there.  There was an Eastern Phoebe which was frequently going under the bridge, so we presumed this was a female building a nest.  Every time she flew, she was chased by another Phoebe, which we presumed was a male.  This bird has the plumage pattern of a Black Phoebe, but the dark areas are not as black as a usual Black Phoebe, and it sang a single note Black Phoebe song.  We are unsure whether this is an unusual plumaged Black Phoebe or, more likely in our opinion, a hybrid Black/Eastern. After we had been there about half an hour, we first heard the usual two note Eastern Phoebe song, and then saw east of the bridge an Eastern Phoebe making this song.  We believe only the males sing, and so presumed this is a male Eastern Phoebe.  Our conclusion is there are 3 Phoebes there: a pair of Easterns plus a hybrid male Eastern/Black Phoebe, which could possibly be an unusual Black Phoebe.

This situation is very similar to when the Black Phoebe first showed up at the 75th Street bridge over Boulder Creek.  There was a pair of Eastern Phoebes already established there, and the Black Phoebe chased the presumed female Eastern Phoebe all the time. No nests were observed, so it is not clear whether hybridization occurred there.

Some photos of these birds can be found from Peter Burke's Cobirds message at 9:30pm last night. Thanks to SeEtta Moss for posting her and Nathan's article from Colorado Birds.

Peter Gent and Peter Burke,

Boulder County.