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Posted by Jason Hoeksema on 17:58:05 05/27/12
In Reply to: Black Noddy: a cautionary tale posted by Jacob Socolar
Jacob,
Thanks for posting this very helpful analysis. It is indeed a useful cautionary tale. Here is a nice photo of the phenomenon Jacob is describing in Brown Noddy chicks:
http://www.avianweb.com/brownnoddies.html
The bird we found on Thursday evening 5/24 (unfortunately after Jacob left!) was definitely a good fit for a young Black Noddy (not a Brown Noddy chick). Here are some photos I took of the Black Noddy on 5/24 (with a 500mm lens and then mostly heavily cropped), for anyone who is interested:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/j_hoeksema/7282512200/in/photostream
(click on "Older" to see additional photos of the bird)
As I noted in my post on Thursday, this bird was found late in the evening, after lots of scoping effort earlier in the day by various birders. The late evening light was helpful, but I suspect the bird was just not present on that row of shrubs most of the day. Interestingly, it appeared to prefer the exact same spot on the pale green shrubs to the right of the "Island Closed" sign on Garden Key (directly under a white pipe that was in the brown vegetation), in nearly the identical spot it was reported from a couple of weeks ago. Several times, it returned to the same spot after briefly flying. The series of photos linked above shows a bird slightly but noticeably smaller than nearby Brown Noddy individuals, with darker plumage overall, a strongly contrasting white cap, and a thinner bill than Brown Noddy (although bill shape is hard to see in the photos).
Good birding,
Jason Hoeksema
Oxford, MS
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