Re: maryannewest@live.com writes can you tell me what kind of bird this is

>> It might help with identification if we knew where it was 
>> seen.
>> 'Bay area' is rather imprecise - which bay? There must be 
>> hundreds of bays around the shores of these islands.
>
> It's 3000 miles from where I live, but "Bay area" without 
> other context means San Francisco Bay to me.

To me in this newsgroup, uk.rec.birdwatching (UK as in United 
Kingdom), considerably more than 3000 miles from San Francisco, 
'bay area' means 'area near some bay or other', with an 
expectation that the name of the bay will be specified.

Anne