Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bu.edu!rpi!leah!gmr044
From: gmr044@leah.Albany.Edu (Gregg Recer)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: ID this bird  AND  Where is Everyone?
Keywords: bunting    summer birding
Message-ID: <3320@leah.Albany.Edu>
Date: 11 Jul 90 13:24:29 GMT
Organization: The University at Albany, Computer Services Center
Lines: 58



In article <35287@vrdxhq.verdix.com> edm@vrdxhq.verdix.com (Ed
Matthews) writes: 


>I was stumped by a bird last night -- don't even have a guess.  Maybe
>someone can come up with an idea.  Description:

>Small passerine, resembling slate junco, only smaller, sleeker, lessround; 
>half the size of nearby female blue grossbeak;finch/sparrow-like gray beak; 
>dark eye, no eye-ring, moustache, wingbars or identifying characteristics; 
>charcoal gray all over withunderside slightly paler; notched, single color 
>tail, more notched than slate junco, about like house 
>finch tail; fully-fledged and
>probably not juvenal; hopping and flitting from branch to branch in
>mixed cedar/pine/shrub thicket at edge of pasture in northern
>Virginia; song a long fairly loud series of tcheek calls at 1/2 to 1
>second intervals, not unlike the chip of a cardinal, but different.
--

>Ed Matthews                                                edm@verdix.com
>Verdix Corporation Headquarters                            (703) 378-7600
>Chantilly, Virginia



I don't have my field guide to check but just a guess: how about a
female indigo bunting?  I recall seeing a female lazuli bunting on a
recent trip to the west coast.  Very similar to what you describe:
basically a really non-descript finch-type bird.  Obviously, you don't
have a luzuli where you are but I think indigo females are quite
similar.


On another note:
    As somebody pointed out, things have been quite dead on this group
lately.  Mid-summer may not be the most exciting birding time but come
on folks! get out there and find something to look at.  My wife and I
are heading up to the Adirondacks this weekend in search of 3-toed
woodpeckers, gray jays, spruce grouse, etc.  We're going to a large
sphagnum bog area to which our bird club makes an annual visit.  Always
a neat place and often pretty neat birds too.  I'll report next week.



Gregg



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     "In future you should delete the words crunchy frog and 
     replace them with the legend crunchy raw unboned real
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                 -- Inspector Bradshaw, The Hygiene Division

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