[cobirds] Rosy-Finch ID query

Hello Colorado Birders:

I've been thoroughly enjoying my first winter in CO (Telluride) being overrun by rosy-finches. I grossly underestimated my budget for hulled sunflower. Peak numbers on a daily basis range between 200 and 550 rosy-finches. Picking out Black and Gray-crowned among the Brown Capped Rosy-Finches has been a delightful game of Where's Waldo.

When it comes to Gray-crowned, Hepburn's like this one: https://flic.kr/p/QNkVhE are easy to spot. And conspicuous adults of the interior race like this one: https://flic.kr/p/NDMAEL are also fairly obvious.

Here is a straight forward adult Brown-capped: https://flic.kr/p/QNmnvw and a first winter bird: https://flic.kr/p/PCbF5z

Where the water gets murky for me and where I am asking for input is an individual like this: https://flic.kr/p/QNphK3

I find I spot the nonBrown-capped birds easiest using my naked eye, not binoculars. They tend to catch my eye because the supercilium is cleaner/brighter gray and contrasts more conspicuously with a darker brown cheek and chest.

The bird in question jumped out to my eye because of its brighter gray supercilium contrasting with a pretty dark cheek. However, the gray doesn't wrap up onto the crown and nape as much as I would expect. Where in the spectrum does this individual fall? I am inclined to call it a Gray-crowned but could it be at the extreme end of Brown-capped? I am struggling to find references that clean this mess up. Perhaps rosy-finch sp. is the best label for these tweeners.

Thanks in advance for any comments or references.

Cheers,

Eric

.....................

Eric Hynes

Telluride, CO

---------------------

Field Guides Birding Tours

www.fieldguides.com

http://fieldguides.com/guides/eric-hynes

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/CAPpN%2B3FAA4rpNjr3iK9qnd7f%2BrAwvCOUeL1q-f1onmpd%2BxtMTA%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.