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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
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