ID this bird?

[Michael W]

Hello,
Here's another bird for ID. Shouldn't be too hard (for some!). Taken on September 19, 2003.

Good luck!
Michael

[CJW]

White-breasted Nuthatch?

[Larry Lade]

I think perhaps it is a Marbled Murrelet Brachyramphus marmoratus.

Larry

[CJW]

Are you having a laugh Larry?

[Michael Frankis]

RED-breasted Nuthatch (despite the white underside! - White-breasted doesn't have the black eye line).

Perched in a Ponderosa Pine (do I get a bonus for identifying this??)

Michael

[KCFoggin]

*sigh* no point in going on after Michael. This one I actually knew too. :)

[dennis]

I don't know.....and I'm firm on that.

Michael. Ever hug a Ponderosa and stick your nose right up against the bark? UMMM......vanilla.

dennis

[Michael Frankis]

Hi Dennis,

I get turpentine smell from Ponderosa. Quite different from the lemony scent of Jeffrey Pine (and can be a useful way to tell these two apart in Calif)

Pinus ponderosa resin is mainly alpha-pinene (a bicyclic sesquiterpene, if that means anything to anyone!), whereas Jeffrey Pine resin is over 90% n-heptane (an aliphatic hydrocarbon, a very rare substance as a plant product). This led to great fun in the pioneering days in CA, when the settlers tried distilling resin products. Ponderosa Pine resin worked well in the stills, but when they used Jeffrey Pine resin, the stills promptly exploded. Since the two species are very similar to look at, they got into a state of complete nervousness, never knowing whether a batch of resin was liable to blow them sky-high or not . . .

Michael

[Michael W]

This will surprise you, but it's not any of those. This time I'm absolutely positive.

Michael

[dennis]

Well Michael F., I must be smelling another species. On a trip to Bryce Canyon, Utah a park ranger had us all hugging what he called Ponderosa Pines. A very sweet smell. Perhaps he was incorrect or my sniffer is broke.

I am inclined to believe that Larry is the closest to iding that bird.

dennis

[KCFoggin]

Well.... on further inspection the tail isn't right for the nuthatch. And this is a bird found in the NA?

[janine13]

Downy Woodpecker?

[Cindy M]

downy woodpecker

LOL Janine, we posted at about the same time.. ;)

[KCFoggin]

Son of a "B" That would explain the tail. LOLOL

[janine13]

great minds think alike, as they say :D

[Michael Frankis]

Downy Woodpecker has a prominent black malar stripe running down the sides of the throat from the bill - this bird doesn't

Michael

[logos]

Nobody seems to have suggested Black and White Warbler.

Spud

[janine13]

Hmm.... how about Hairy Woodpecker?

[logos]

Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers both have a big black malar patch and neither has a pale crown stripe.

Spud

[Charles Harper]

That's not his crown, logos, that's his superciliar, and the lower black line is the malar stripe. It's a Downy, on bill size.

[logos]

If that's the malar why is it so short and narrow and why does it have an eye in the middle?

Spud

[Michael W]

Janine13 got it right her second guess. It's a Hairy Woodpecker.
The reason the bill looks short is that the bird is tipping its head in a weird angle, making the bill look shorter than it really is.

Good job!
Michael

[Michael W]

By the way, Michael F, Good job on identifying the ponderosa pine! You were exactly right on that one!

Michael

[Michael Frankis]

Hi Dennis,

Bryce Canyon - that's in the range of a different subspecies of Ponderosa (South Rockies Ponderosa; 4 on the map below) which has a slightly different resin composition to the either the nominate subspecies (what Michael W has in the Spokane area, a.k.a. 'North Plateau' Ponderosa; 1) or the subspecies in CA to west WA ('Pacific' Ponderosa; 2). As the details of the scent are in the minor components of the resin, this will mean a different scent for your subspecies. I've not sniffed the South Rockies subspecies.

Base map: from USDA Forest Service Misc. Publ. 991 (free use not covered by copyright)

Michael

[dennis]

Thanks Michael F. You are a fountain of coniferous knowledge!

Michael W. Hairy, of course! I didn't want to show off and blurt out the answer too soon(yeah, right).

dennis

[Charles Harper]

I guess you've figured out that's not an eye, just a wierd thickening in the stripe, Spud-- the narrowness is either an artifact of perspective or real narrowness-- there's a good bit of variability in head pattern. I got fooled by the perspective, too.

And I liked the murrelet guess, actually-- it does look a bit like a Kittlitz's Murrelet, and Marbleds do nest in conifers...

[Larry Lade]

Hey Guys, I was serious with the murrelet suggestion. The perspective really had me fooled. I thought the eye of the bird was in that lower stripe. I was not real certain how big the bird was either. I can see it now, the bird has its head cocked at a weird angle. I guess sometimes I just try to make some of these IDs more exotic than they are!

Larry

[Michael W]

That's okay, Larry. I got a big laugh! 3:-)

Michael

[Michael Frankis]

Query:
If you cross a Hairy Woodpecker with a Downy Woodpecker, do you get a Dairy Woodpecker? :king:

[Michael W]

Could be. o:D

Michael

[CJW]

Don't milk it Michael!