Greetings birders - 

What a PHENOMENAL bird. Many many thanks and cheers to Mr. Emery Yoder. A fantastic call on ID. 


PHOTOS from yesterday: 
http://birding.posterous.com
Click twice on each photo to view original size. 


The extensive, wholesomely rich "peachy-ocre" or underparts and, broad buffy fringes to the wing coverts and primary coverts, to me, suggests that the Ohio bird is of the Greenland race "leucorhoa." This subspecies breeds in northern Quebec, Iceland, Labrador, and Greenland, and winters in west Africa. 

wikipedia bit: 

"Birds of the large, bright Greenland race, leucorhoa, makes one of the longest transoceanic crossings of any passerine....autumn sightings from ships suggest that some birds
cross the North Atlantic directly from Canada and Greenland to
southwest Europe (a distance of up to 2500 km)."

Check out a photo-documentation page of a similarly-aged bird from NY in September 2001:
http://www.oceanwanderers.com/NYWhtear.html

Particularly useful...check out the discussion points at the bottom of the page, where the bird was reviewed on ID-Frontiers. What I take away from this piece is that first-year birds - immature male and immature female wheatears in Autumn - cannot be separated except in the hand. 

Best of birding - 
Jen

Jen Brumfield
Medina, OH





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