Ruby-crowned Kinglet

First fall immature, Central Park, Oct 8th.
These birds are hyperactive, so most of my images of Ruby-crowned have a dubious level of blur about them. It's a borderline nemesis bird for that reason, especially for a relatively common species. Golden-crowned Kinglet and Wilson's Warbler have the same challenges - they never pause, especially in migration when they are looking for food after flying all night. The odds were enhanced in this case by it being a sunny day, so a higher shutter speed helped. And also a large amount of luck.

Immature White-crowned Sparrow

Sometimes aging a bird is as easy as identifying it - this first fall immature White-crowned Sparrow being a case in point. This was found on an otherwise relatively quiet Saturday morning in Central Park. With the park the usual challenge is snatching opportunities between dog walkers, tourists and joggers - in this instance I gave up photographing at this spot when two tour groups turned up, although the two White-crowned Sparrows that were here actually were relatively tame.

Palm Warbler

First fall immature Palm Warbler, of the "Yellow" Palm subspecies hyphochrysea, at Griggstown Preserve in NJ in October 2008 (before they mowed the Hell out of the place).

Hermit Thrush

Probably a first fall immature based on the buff edges to the coverts.

Swainson's Thrush

Red-eyed Vireo

First fall immature (as judged by eye color)

Gray-cheeked Thrush, Sept 11th

Although I identified it at the time as a Gray-cheeked Thrush it subsequently caused me a few problems when I started to look at it more carefully on the computer screen.  Mainly that its bill was pink on the lower mandible - until just recently I had assumed that Gray-cheeked had a yellow lower mandible, where the yellow was restricted to less than 50% of the extent.  It seems like I was wrong there, and looking back through my old images of Gray-cheeked I see that some of them have pink on the bill.

The bird above is a relatively cold coloration bird, predominantly olive, with a minimal eye ring and no buffy in the face or lores.  There's quite a lot of gray-olive wash on the flanks, no contrast between tail and primaries.  The lack of eye ring and buffy lores eliminates Swainson's - and it's usually fairly prominent even on the drabbest Swainson's.  Wrong coloration for Veery (and too much spotting).

So what we have is a relatively small Gray-cheeked - it was slightly smaller than nearby Swainson's Thrushes - on the olive end of gray.  It could well be the minimus subspecies rather than the aliciae subspecies, not least of all because the latter should be a littler larger than Swainson's.  Either way it's not C. bicknelli (Bicknell's Thrush) because of bill color, lower mandible color extent and the lack of rufous on wings on tail.  However it looks rather like Bicknell's in basic structure.  It's also a first fall immature bird, based on both the buffy terminal spots on the coverts and the pointed tail feathers.