[NatureNS] Unusual martin on Cape Sable Island, May 20

Date: Sat, 26 May 2012 16:52:23 -0300
From: iamclar@dal.ca
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca, ns-rba@yahoogroups.com
User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) H3 (4.3.4)
Precedence: bulk
Return-Path: <naturens-mml-owner@chebucto.ns.ca>
Original-Recipient: rfc822;"| (cd /csuite/info/Environment/FNSN/MList; /csuite/lib/arch2html)"

next message in archive
no next message in thread
previous message in archive
Index of Subjects


All:

It has been almost a week since I saw an odd martin on CSI. At about  
1030 last Sunday (20 May), it was perched high on the wires across the  
road from the cemetery near the start of the road to the fish plant at  
Daniel's Head (site of the widely ticked 2008 Fork-tailed Flycatcher  
and other interesting vagrants). It stayed less than 5 minutes,  and  
then flew out of sight toward The Hawk.

My first though was Tree Swallow, but when I got my binoculars in  
play, it was clearly a martin. Yet unlike any field-guide  
illustrations, it was unsullied white from lower breast to tip of  
undertail coverts (crissum). Although it was fluffed out and seemed  
somewhat droopy (from a long trip?), it didn't look as large as a  
martin should be, but that was hard to judge. I briefly entertained  
the notion that it was a hybrid Purple Martin X Tree Swallow, but then  
wondered about a tropical martin. So I concentrated on getting a few I  
took a few representative images. Unfortunately, there was no  
opportunity to get images of the bird from above or side, nor did it  
expose its flanks.

I tried to get in touch with the CSI birders, but could not make  
contact with Clyde Stoddart by phone and there were no cars at either  
Murray Newell's house or Johnny Nickerson's. Fortunately, Johnny  
returned an hour later, and I dropped in to report the bird.  When I  
had just I mentioned an odd martin, Johnny immediately responded that  
he had seen the bird at the same place, and noted it as too white  
below, and thought too small for the usual Purple Martin. He had a  
nearby Tree Swallow to assist in that judgement.

Richard Stern has kindly hosted, temporarily, a couple of images of  
the bird that so that non-NS-RBA members could see them. You may have  
to copy and paste this, because it is split:

  < http://richard-s.smugmug.com/Nature/Birds/Ian-McLarens-
Rarities/23104527_4xXcDw#!i=1860248898&k=zXgsrG4>

I have also posted  three images on NS-RBA.

As Al Jarimiollo, responding on the Advanced Birding Group, noted: "I  
guess one way to begin this is to understand variation in Purple  
Martin, only then can we really figure out what these oddballs are.  
The question I would ask (thinking about some more southern martin  
species) is how common, or in what plumage does a Purple Martin have  
clean white undertail coverts? . . . . This is a key feature, as  
Grey-breasted (which this bird resembles!)"

I've also had very useful input from Paul Buckley in Rhode Island, who  
yesterday studied a colony in CT and observed, among other  
non-field-guide features, a subad. male that was white below the  
chest, but with dark marks on the crissum.  David Christie in NB, who  
with Stu Tingley dealt with a similar martin they photo'd in NB 21  
April 2011. He sent the following link to a Purple Martin site  
describing  as 2nd cycle ("subadult") females as sometimes having  
all-white crissum, but doesn't show or describe how far up the breast  
(as in the CSI martin) this white might extend.

         <http://purplemartin.org/update/Tattletails11(4).pdf>

The extensively blue wings including coverts of the CSI martin may be  
more suggestive of subadult male.

There are lots of images of Purple Gray-breasted Martin to be Googled,  
if you want to pursue the issue further, as I have without resolution.  
You might also discover that there is good evidence that the  
Gray-breasted Martin is probably two species, a slightly smaller one  
largely resident in Brazil, and the other an austral migrant breeding  
in Bolivia, Uruguay, Argentina, and more likely to "overshoot" during  
its northward migration (our spring) like Fork-tailed Flycatcher,  
Brown-chested Martin, and some other swallows and swifts that turn up  
in N. America.

So, that's where it remains. The bird was most likely a Purple Martin,  
but how, then, would one confidently i.d. a vagrant Gray-breasted  
Martin? A mystery is always more fun than a mere tick.

Cheers, Ian

Ian McLaren





next message in archive
no next message in thread
previous message in archive
Index of Subjects