November 13th, 2005. Hammonasset Beach State Park, CT. (Western) Horned Lark Eremophila alpestris. Frank Gallo and I independantly found ourselves drawn to this pale, grayish Horned Lark in the parking lot near Hammonasset Beach State Park Nature Center. It was with a small group of darker Eastern type birds and two Lapland Longspurs. In Frank’s words, this pale bird “stood out like a sore thumb”. We watched it for a prolonged period and found it comparable to watching an Ipswich Sparrow amongst Savannah Sparrows, or a Hoary Redpoll amongst Commons. Pyle (1997) lists ten Western pale forms of Horned Lark and the characters displayed by this bird would suggest that it’s from one of these, but which one? NB. The images were taken in strong low afternoon sunlight. The birds appear slightly warmer in tone in the images than they did in life. Taken using Canon Powershot A-95 through Swarovski telescope.

(Western) Horned Lark. Overall rather pallid, lacking the warm tones of its companions. Subtle yellow tones restricted to the throat with a little on the forehead.

(Western) Horned Lark showing white rear supercilium.

(Western) Horned Lark. Overall quite uniformly gray-brown.

(Western) Horned Lark at the rear. Note the pale, pinkish-gray rump, a noticeable feature in the field.

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