henicorhina's Favorites

Growth Habit: Subconnate to gregarious
Habitat: Growing directly underneath pine and was initially completely covered by pine needles and leaf litter.
Distribution: Florida
Odor: Buttered popcorn
Spores: Rusty brown, measuring 8.99 – 11.69 × 4.9 – 6.69 µm
Q = 1.56 – 1.96 ; N = 19
Me = 10.12 × 5.67 µm ; Qe = 1.789
10.44 × 5.47
10.19 × 5.33
9.78 × 5.18
9.52 × 4.9
8.99 × 5.44
10.55 × 5.84
9.70 × 5.80
10.19 × 6.03
10.28 × 6.24
10.52 × 5.35
9.77 × 6.25
11.69 × 6.69
10.30 × 5.52
9.97 × 5.84
10.45 × 5.79
10.33 × 5.33
9.83 × 5.96
10.45 × 5.37
9.36 × 5.48

Tricky individual that only clucked, so unhelpful for ID. Less buffy plumage and white wing band about midway between wrist and primary tips suggest Common Nighthawk, but wings approximately the same length as tail at rest suggest Antillean. I have documented individuals by voice that appear to be hybrids not far from this location, so probably best left at genus level.

This bird was discussed on the ABA blog (http://blog.aba.org/2014/09/open-mic-the-townsends-bunting-story.html), in Audubon magazine (https://www.audubon.org/news/the-ghost-john-james-audubons-past) and elsewhere.

Appeared to be a mating run. Three individuals moving at extremely high speed (as evidenced by the large wake in these photos), across about a mile or two, eventually disappearing off to the north in a large semi-circle. These photos are in temporal order, with the first photo at the beginning

more EATO than SPTO. Sibley and West's hybrid index sets pure EATO = 0 and pure SPTO = 7. I gave this bird a score of 2 based on the extensive gray in the face. There was no white spotting on the coverts or scapulars. White patch at the base of the primaries seemed in range for typical EATO.

Mostly giving SPTO calls with a few EATO-like calls mixed in

https://ebird.org/checklist/S12312172

This photo (published in the book "Birding Honduras: A Checklist and Guide") was taken on Great Swan Island, about 100 miles north of Honduras' north coast, in March of 1997. It may have been extirpated from the island when Hurricane Mitch passed over them in October 1998. I took this photo. Another member of the expedition to Swan Island, Franklin Castañeda, also observed this species on Swan Island.

So this just happened! Looked outside and saw what I thought was just going to be a female meadowhawk on my hummingbird feeder hook. Um, nope! Just a Coppery Emerald chilling and being insanely cooperative...you know, like they do. If only there had been a little more sun to allow better photos from my camera (but then again, it probably wouldn't have been so cooperative that way)!

chaparral yucca, Hesperoyucca whipplei, White Mountains, elevation 1595 m (5240 ft).

This is a recently discovered northward range extension (or maybe more accurately, remnant of range contraction) for this species at the southern edge of the Great Basin in the White Mountains. Only this single very healthy plant was found despite multiple further searches of the area. The main range of chaparral yucca is in the southern Sierra Nevada and southwestern California chaparral, into northern Baja California.

Specimen number Morefield 5818.

Uploaded from my Flickr site: https://www.flickr.com/photos/127605180@N04/