[obol] Bird Books

[Mary Jo Harper]

Thanks to the several who sent thoughts on my introductory 
post/questions.  Some wondered whether I have good field guides to 
reference.  I used to have books for eastern birds, as I lived in Nebraska. 
I was right on the cusp between eastern and western birds there (The 
Sandhills, on the Niobrara River), but I got more info from the eastern 
book.  As I was coming to Oregon, I gave those books to others in Nebraska.

When I got here, I wanted some Oregon-only books, as I'd had good use of a 
Nebraska-only book back there.  So I have Birds of Oregon, by Roger Burrows 
and Jeff Gilligan, published by Lone Pine Press.  Also, Birds of Oregon 
Field Guide, by Stan Tekiela, by Adventure Publications.  That publishing 
house is the one who did the Birds of Nebraska book.  I also have a 
plasticized flip-open guide, Oregon Birds, An Introduction to Familiar 
Species, by James Kavanaugh, illustrated by Raymond Leung, published by 
Waterford Press.

As I'm at this point only doing backyard birds, are these books 
sufficient?  Are they "good"?  I especially like The Birds of Oregon Field 
Guide by Stan Tekiela, as the birds are sorted by color, so we newbies have 
a chance of finding things.  Thing of it is, the depictions in all of these 
resources are usually of the male, though the Tekiela book is good about 
including some females.

I've been trying and trying to learn about one bird who has been coming to 
the suet feeder in particular, eating sunflowers on the ground as well.  It 
seems to me to be a fairly unusual bird ... about the size of a robin, 
yellow beak, black eyes, dark brown all over, slightly darker on the 
head.  The most dominant thing is that the bird is all "spotted".  That is, 
no streaks, just lots and lots of what I've now been reading online might 
be called white tipped feathers.  It isn't around very often, and doesn't 
stay long.  Really attacks the suet.  It's a grumpy looking bird.

So I've looked and looked, and tonight I think I might have found 
it.  There is a website called Whatbird.com that is really pretty 
neat.  You can narrow your search by color, location, beak, size, etc.  I 
looked all through those, and didn't find my bird.  Then I noticed a 
category called "alternatives".  Though I do not know how it could be so, 
my bird looks very much like a breeding male European starling!  Wouldn't 
that be strange about now?

Then I did a google images search.  Most of the European starlings were 
dark, iridescent, black bills.  But a few pictures were very, very much 
like my bird.

What do you think?  Am I on the right track in identifying this bird as a 
starling?  Why, apart from being a breeding male, would it be brown, so 
spotted -all over, under and over and all the parts- and not dark and 
iridescent like the majority?

Thanks for your ideas and the welcome several have sent.

Mary Jo

MJ Harper
mjoharper at comcast.net
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