tags: Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, Leucosticte tephrocotis, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, Leucosticte tephrocotis, Photographed at Meadows Campground, Hart's Pass, in the Okanagan of Washington State. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Lee Rentz, 19 October 2008.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
Undistinguished in shape -- sort of finch-like, sparrow-like, birdish -- but what colors this bird has! The combination of browns, grays, blacks, and pinks, together with the lavish pale edging on wing tail, tells us immediately that we're looking at a rosy-finch. There are approximately 27 species and subspecies in the genus Leucosticte, eight or nine of which occur in North America. Their identification (see and the sources cited in this Free PDF) is often subtle, sometimes difficult, occasionally impossible; good views can be hard to obtain away from feeders, the plumages of non-adults and females can be obscure, and hybridization and intergradation appear to be the norm.
This splendid photograph neatly removes the first challenge, and the second is put aside by the bright, crisp colors of this apparent male. The extensive gray hood of this quiz bird -- extending onto the sides of the head -- is unique in North America to Gray-headed Rosy-Finch, currently considered merely a well-marked subspecies group of Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch but probably as distinct as the other recognized species and a prime candidate for a split. Location and the bird's apparently "normal" size allow us to assign this individual to the race littoralis, which shares its gray-headed appearance with the giant subspecies of the Bering Sea islands.
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I'm going to call that a Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, a bird I've never seen. But now that I've seen this photo, I really want to see one. What a beautiful bird!
An absolutely gorgeous photo of the eponymously *fieldmark* named gray-crowned rosy finch.
This appears to be a Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch of the Hepburn's race from the Aleutians. The yellow bill gives that away.
Hi Charlie - I thought that all of the rosy finches showed yellow on the bill during the winter?
There's not a lot of black shading on the upper breast, so I'm wondering why this one isn't the littoralis from the Cascades, rather than the race from the Aleutians?
But you're right, they are beautiful birds, and the gray on the sides of the face definitely make this a "gray crowned".
This is what I like: a gray-headed bird that's pinkish, and its name is "gray-crowned rosy" finch.
I have to add that I too have never seen one and would really like to.