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Bird Photos: Rarities: Lark Bunting at Bayfront
Park
Menlo Park, San Mateo County, CA
This Lark Bunting was found by Rich Ferrick on 10/4/04.
Bayfront Park is a capped landfill at the edge of the San Francisco
Bay in Menlo Park. This species breeds in the grasslands of central
North America, and winters in the Southwest and Texas, south into
Mexico. They are rare in in most of the eastern and western states.
Most of the fall sightings in Northern California are coastal
and appear to be of first winter birds or adult females which
are very similar in plumage. Winter records are usually of birds
found in the interior of the state. The striking adult male plumage
is extremely rare in Northern California.
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I looked for the Lark Bunting on 10/7/04
and was lucky to find it fairly quickly, as the area it
frequented was expansive.
It was usually in the company of White- and Golden-crowned
sparrows. Its slightly bulkier shape and paler overall tones
made it easy to notice once you located where it was feeding.
This seedeater has a fairly large bill that
seems about the same proportion to its head and body as
on a Black-headed Grosbeak. The malar stripe was not bold;
it appears dark in this image probably because of accentuation
by the shadow.
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For a while, it sat in a bush and allowed
me to study it at length, albeit from the back. This is
where the size of the bill and its bluish tone became very
obvious to me. |
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It spent most of the time that I observed
it feeding on the ground, usually in the shade. This image
shows it with a 1st winter Golden-crowned Sparrow. You can
see that it appears more plump, shorter-tailed, larger-billed,
and paler overall than its feeding cohort. The white panel
formed by the white greater secondary coverts is more obvious
in this photo of the bird in the shade than in the first
image.
The contrasting streaking on the white belly
showed well in most views. The back streaking was not as
contrasty because of the tan-gray background color.
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| When it perched in a eucalyptus tree,
the white wing panel on the opposite side showed very well.
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I think this bird was about to fly from
its perch. You can see some of the flank detail with the
wing lifted out of the way, as well as the radius and ulna
of the forearm. The white-edged tertial feathers are noticeable
on the far wing. |
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| Here's a front view of the chest. It seems
to have a "stickpin" central chest mark and another
dark feather. Could these be a few unseasonal dark body
feathers of the male bunting? But the weak malar stripe
may indicate that this is not a 1st winter male nor an adult
female. The pale supercillium and white submoustachial mark
show up the best in this image.
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