ESSAY, Rare Bird Sighting

Wow - here’s a joyful holiday treat - an ornithologist named Jethro Runco, working on San Clemente Island, found an Asian passerine species called a red-flanked bluetail.  A pretty little multi-colored bird with distinctive markings.  Below is his account as reported on E-Bird.

Fun to read about and imagine. It sounds like the little guy was easy to watch - the montane bird trip I took had difficult sightings to make - those tree-toppers are fast and elusive!  

Such a pretty bird, too.

FROM E-BIRD: Mr. Runco’s posting:

Around 2:30 PM, as we were walking back out of the canyon, picking our way through the extremely dense prickly pear cactus, we dropped down into a smaller drainage and a small bird flew in front of us, arcing to our right and dropping behind a small mound of rocks. We both saw the bird.  I looked at Loni and said, “What was that? It looked like a really small bluebird!?” I scrambled over the rock mound for a better look because this bird wasn’t…well…it was ODD! I got on the bird quickly and said “Holy #$&@!! What the heck IS that??”! I jumped back over the rock pile and rumaged through my pack trying to find my camera, the whole time telling Loni, “I don’t know what this bird is!” Loni was dumbfounded too. Our excitement growing rapidly, my mind was a blur of all the species it might be. This little bird had characteristics of so many other birds: the blue tail was reminiscent of a bluebird; the eye-ring was that of a Nashville Warbler; the orange-yellowish sides of the bird were like those on a young American Redstart; the shape of the bird was like that of a small thrush or Bluethroat; the bird flicked its tail downward like a Gray Flycatcher; and it had a white throat that didn’t fit anything! IT JUST DIDN’T ADD UP!! Then Siberian Rubythroat popped into my head. Maybe?!? I had no idea what one of those really looked like, but the females do have white throats, don’t they? It was the closest thing I could think of. It was at that point when we both started to freak out! 

After what seemed like an eternity, I finally laid hands on my camera--a small point-and-shoot type, but that’s all I got! I figured we’d better get pictures or no one would believe us (and we needed them to help ID the thing)! We took off and quickly refound the bird foraging along the canyon wall, completely oblivious to our presence (a good thing for us!). At first we just took in the bird, trying to mentally gather all the plumage details and foraging behavior. STILL having no idea what the bird was, I got the camera into action. The bird was very cooperative, allowing us to get within 10-15 feet. I was using one barrel of my binoculars to see through while the other had my camera pressed up to it in “digi-binocular” fashion. I figured if I could see the bird with one eyepiece, the other had to be on the bird, too. I took at least a 100 pictures knowing most would not turn out well, but hoping, HOPING, a few would.

The bird was small, about the size of an Ovenbird, but with the posture of a thrush. A bold, solid, and pale eye-ring was obvious. This bird had a habit of pumping its tail and flicking its wings somewhat similar to a kinglet. The yellowish sides of the breast, contrasted with the cinnamon edged wings. And then there was the blue tail and rump! And that striking white throat!  We followed the bird for roughly 30 minutes – 30 minutes of sheer pleasure; minds racing and hearts pumping! Knowing this bird was not a normally occurring species in North America, Loni and I were ecstatic