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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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