ML117773471

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

When viewing this bird, I was thinking almost purely in terms of separating the bird from western subspecies of Willow Flycatcher.. This bird was an Empidonax flycatcher of comparable size to western Willows. The tail struck me as relatively long in empid terms. It had this appearance although the primaries were longer than those of most empids I am familiar with; the primaries were probably shorter than Hammond’s and about the same length as Least. So, in side view, the bird looked pretty elongated for an empid. Through my binoculars, the bill appeared shorter than that of western Willows, but not short for an empid bill. The bill was dark above and entirely yellow-orange below. The only other structural feature that stood out to me was the head shape, which was rounder than I would expect of a Willow, and certainly lacked the relatively obvious rear peak to the crown of Willow. In the front view, I noted an olive wash (not really gray, but greenish) across the breast that was densest on the sides. The underparts otherwise struck me as pretty white, although at times I thought I picked up some yellowish around the vent or lower belly. The throat was quite white and stood out as contrasting strongly with the breast and face at this angle. In side view, the contrast between face and throat was a little less striking. But the throat still seemed very white. The upperparts looked overall pretty dark compared to empids I’m used to seeing. In particular, the wings were very dark, but with highly contrasting whitish wing bars and bright white tertials that stood out quite strongly. The flight feathers also seemed to have a fair amount of whitish on the edges. In this view, a distinct but narrow eye ring was very noticeable. The rear view showed a lot of the features that could be seen from the side, but an olive tinge to the mantle was probably more obvious. I don’t recall much, if any, difference in the color of the mantle versus that of the crown. But photos suggest the head was grayer and paler. The vocalization was different from any empid vocalization I knew. I did not not see the bird giving this call, but it popped up almost immediately after I heard the call, in the same location. The vocalization was a sharp but not terribly loud “pip."

Technical information

Model

DMC-FZ70

ISO

125

Focal length

195.4 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/5.7

Shutter speed

1/125 sec

Dimensions

2281 pixels x 1744 pixels

Original file size

885.44 KB