NYC area rarities - 2002
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In late fall/early winter 2002 a nice crop of rare and unusual birds have turned up in the NYC area. I have managed to get photos of a few of these.
This bird appears to be a first fall immature female, and agreeably tame.
This bird is in full adult plumage. Comparison of Ross's with Snow Goose is shown on Greg Lasley's site and there are a couple of pictures of adults at birdphotography.com for comparison. In the wild compared to Snow Goose the ID is helped by relative size - around NYC the Greater Snow Goose would be markedly larger. In TX the Lesser Snow Goose is still noticeably larger than Ross's Goose.
To reiterate: it is unlikely that we will be able to determine whether this is a Rufous or Allen's Hummingbird - first fall females are the toughest to differentiate and even adult males can be somewhat of a challenge. Statistically it is almost certainly a Rufous (but this is a self-perpetuating argument ;)
There appears to be a notch on the indside of tail feather R2 which suggests that the Central Park bird was a Rufous. Despite quite a lot of marking on the gorget (none of it with a rufous color) the bird appears to be an immature female. This bird vanished as of 11/23/02.