There's been at least one female Cassin's Finch at CMO, possibly for most of April. Unfortunately, I had never seen a female Cassin's before, and hadn't gotten good looks, so had called it a funky Lark Bunting. Then several days ago, while I had been in Alpine, a couple of birders reported that species on their ebird reports for here. I was skeptical, since I had been watching male finches closely, looking for a Cassin's, to no avail.
Today I looked again without finding one. Then I checked the ebird reports again and noticed it said "female" Cassin's. Finally, it hit me. I had no idea what a female Cassin's should look like.
A photo of an unidentified bird shown to me by Mac was the Cassin's. (I had told him it was a female Red-winged Blackbird.) I find it hard to believe that with all the birders I've had visit this month that if it had been here it wouldn't have been seen and reported by someone sooner, so maybe it wasn't here. Don't know. It'll remain a mystery, I guess.
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| Cassin's Finch in Golden Leadball tree |
So today I focused on finding and photographing that species. By now, only one is still here. This isn't the first time I've had an unusual bird and didn't identify it for many days. (My last Costa's Hummingbird comes to mind.) Good thing for visitors.
And here's a Northern Cloudywing in my verbena patch.
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