tags: Pyrrhuloxia, Cardinalis sinuatus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Pyrrhuloxia, Cardinalis sinuatus, photographed at Katy Prairie, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 1 February 2007 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/500s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
That long, red-edged tail can belong to only a cardinal. While most of North America makes do with the stunning and familiar Northern Cardinal, birders in the southwest and Texas are fortunate enough to have a second cardinal species, Pyrrhuloxia. The overall gray impression of our mystery bird essentially rules out the waxy-tan female of Northern Cardinal, and the red around the eye and the curiously stubby, extravagantly curved bill confirm our identification of this quiz bird as a Pyrrhuloxia.
This species is normally thought of as sedentary, but there are records far afield that most likely pertain to wild wanderers; Oregon is the latest beneficiary, but this bird could show up anywhere, so be alert!
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I always have to check to say hm, is that female Northern Cardinal actually a Pyrrhuloxia? So far, the answer has always been, "nope." But guess what? Today the answer is "yup"! I'm thinking that's an adult female Pyrrhuloxia.
I'm going by the stubby beak and the grayish (rather than brownish) back, and then by the Sibley illustration's showing little bits of red in just the spots that this bird has them.
When that football team moved from St. Louis to Arizona, they should have changed the name to the Arizona Pyrrhuloxias.
That little sweetie's a few blocks outside her usual neighborhood, but even where they're common Pyrrhuloxias do seem to move around a bit between summer and winter (more than Northern Cardinals, maybe?).
kamaka, that was a widespread sentiment in the Arizona birding community, too. My angle on it is that the team would only need a little tweaking of their mascot if the nomenclatural powers-that-be would just change that antiquated, unparsable, toungue-twisting name to "Desert Cardinal."
It looks like a Pyrrhuloxia to me. Red in wings looks like the a touch of red in the crest and it is pointed, rounded bill.
Pyrrhuloxia for the overall shape, the rounded, conical beak, and red in the crest, wings, and tail. Female for the red on the head being confined to the eye ring and for the yellow cast to the belly (although I haven't seen enough of them to know how variable that is.)
Don't know about the team name, but wish that AOU would change the common name, as suggested above, to "Desert Cardinal" -- even sounds like it looks.
When I first saw it, many years ago in AZ, I thought it was an aberration of some kind: a cardinal with a yellow beak!!