[obol] Hillsboro Barrow's Goldeneye

[M & R Campbell]

Before that Cardinal flew into the state of things, I was really enjoying the nit-picking about the Hillsboro Goldeneye.  My immediate reaction upon looking at Scott Carpenter's photos was "Barrow's."  I don't usually have much to add to these discussions of ID minutiae, but four years ago I took several pictures of a female at Lost Lost Lake that I thought was suspiciously Commonesque, and I was told by several birders much better than I, that it was a Barrow's, and that there wasn't much doubt about it--or any cause to suspect hybridism, atypicality, or damned dirty double-crossing.  My pictures aren't the quality of Scott's, but after looking them over again, I'd say that the shape of the Lost Lake bird's head and bill, and their relative proportions, are indistinguishable from those of the Hillsboro Goldeneye.  At that time, I credited my suspicions of Commonality to having been tricked by the flattened feathers on the forehead of a constantly diving duck (just as the feathers are considerably flattened in some of the pictures of the Hillsboro bird).  Now I suspect that the different interpretations of head shape might be the difference between a winter Goldeneye in the valley, which should be Common Goldeneye, and a summer Goldeneye in the Cascades, which had better be a Barrow's Goldeneye.  It seems to me that when they're side-by-side, Common and Barrow's females are easy to tell apart.  Maybe someone could post some good, unequivocal (first-year male) Common Goldeneye photo's side-by-side with Scott's pictures?  Maybe some Barrows pictures, too?  Myself, I'm off to paddle around Yaquina Bay and look at the birds close-up.

We have had a MERLIN here in Peoria, and in our backyard, most days since March 1.  It is at least as pale as the extraordinary and beautiful Merlin in Steve Halpern's post of 2/24.  Anyone driving though the Peoria area might try stopping in and scanning the tops of the taller trees between the church and the boat ramp.  I heard a PILEATED WOODPECKER yesterday, and this morning a BALD EAGLE (second year?) landed in our Bigleaf Maple.

Are you sure that "Cardinal" isn't an aberrant Pyrrhuloxia?  Sometimes the lighting is funny.  Check out the culmen.  I have this feeling.  I think there's room for discussion here.

Randy
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