[obol] REEVE? at Tualatin River NWR

[Riutta Family]

Not being an expert in any sense of anyone's imagination on the Ruff / Reeve
species, here's my two cents anyway: the "Adult Late Summer" image in
Sibley's "Guide to Birds" p.189 looks very much like the TRNRW bird. I
agree, the size is suspicious for a female but the coloration looks more
like a transitional male depicted in Sibley. However, being a bird species
of so seemingly wide a variation in breeding plumage, can illustrative
examples of transitional plumage be trusted?

Things that make you (or at least me) go "Hmmm..."

Peace and good bird watching.
John E. Riutta


Original message:

OBOL:

The original observers called the RUFF at  Tualatin River NWR a male.  When
I saw it on Friday morning, with all the black scaly coloration in its
foreneck & breast, I thought it was a male, too.  All my previous
experiences with this species have been juvenile birds, which are buffy on
their entire underparts.

Last evening Carol Karlen & I looked through our books at her house, and I
began to question whether the bird was a male.

We  returned to the scene today and studied the bird some more, spending
quite some time looking for critical marks.

a) The bird is clearly an adult.  It lacks the buffy underparts of a
juvenile.  The tertials are patterned, not solid-color in the center.

b) The bird is obviously not a breeding male.  That leaves us with
post-breeding male or post-breeding female.

c) The crown is dark.  The upperparts are dark brown (not black, not rusty,
not white) with light edging.  The cheeks and throat quite whitish.  The
black on the foreneck and breast is blotchy/scaly.  The undertail is clean
white.  The flanks are not spotted.  The bill is all dark.  The legs dark
yellow-orange.

d) In direct comparison with two L-b. Dowitchers this afternoon the bird was
the same bulk and body size, or slightly smaller.

Back at the books tonight I see the following:

Paulson's "Shorebirds of the Pacific Northwest"
"...males about size of Greater Yellowlegs ... Females about size of
dowitchers."  "Breeding Female...Neck and breast...relatively plain or
fairly heavily spotted..."

Paulson's "Shorebirds of North America"
"Male weight 180 gm....female 109 gm.....dowitchers 105 gms."  Our bird
compares well with the breeding female shown in photo 81.6, p. 305. (?)

Stokes "Stokes Field Guide to Birds.. Western Region"
"[breeding] Female... black blotches on breast and flanks."

Audubon "Master Guide to Birding"
"Breeding females have black and brown upperparts; the underparts are white
with a scaly pattern of black and brown tips to the feathers of the foreneck
and breast."

National Geographic "Field Guide to the Birds of North America"
" Female lacks ruff, is smaller, and has a variable amount of black below."
The illustration of the summer molting female on p. 179 fits our bird very
well.

Sibley's "Guide to Birds"
See the illustration of the "Adult female breeding" on p. 189.

Let me suggest that the barred tertials make our bird an adult, the dark
brown back and blotchy breast/forneck suggests it could be a female, and the
SIZE strongly supports the idea that it is a female.

What do you think?

Anyway, go see it.  Enjoy the bird!

Paul T. Sullivan