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| Black-throated Green Warbler |
I got a call from Anthony at about 10 o'clock, saying very excitedly that he had a Townsend's Solitare up near his place. Joseph and I converged to the location quickly and got excellent looks at it before it flew off to the southwest.
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| Townsend's Solitare. State lifer! |
We birded a little more at a cordgrass marsh near there where we had seen Nelson's Sparrow's in the past. There wasn't much, but we did see several Le Conte's Sparrows.
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| Le Conte's Sparrow |
Later in the afternoon, I noticed a bunch of skippers on some flowers in our yard. Upon closer inspection, I was shocked to see a skipper of the genus Panoquina! Only one other Panoquina had ever been seen in Kansas and that was also in our yard almost a year ago to the day. I quickly got a bunch of pictures, which revealed that this was indeed an Ocola Skipper!
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| Today's Ocola Skipper! |
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| Today's Ocola Skipper! |
We identified the one last year as an Ocola as well, but after the fact an expert who had experience with both Ocola and Purple-washed from south Texas told us that he thought it was actually a Purple-washed. The more we looked into it, the more we agreed. So, I guess we'll just have to admit that we initially made the wrong identification. Anyway, a Purple-washed is very rare as well, in fact, it is much rarer than an Ocola, even though they are both first state records.
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| Purple-washed Skipper from last year. Notice faint row of spots on the wing and overall purple-ish sheen |
Dan Jones deserves a shout-out for setting us on the right path on this ID. Here is a link to his very interesting blog.
Only a little longer till gull season!
Andrew
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