Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Observation details
Wayne or somebody found the Empidonax in the same area (west side of the Jack Green Nature Area), and we all converged on it. The yellowish Empidonax showed a striking wing panel with very dark (blackish) coverts and remiges that contrasted strongly with white edges to the coverts and tertials. The eye-ring looked complete with hardly any extension posterior and looking solid above (vs. thinning out as typical for a “western” flycatcher). At this point, I decided the bird was indeed a candidate for a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher and rushed back to my car to retrieve my scope as I needed to see primary spacing details. It took about 15 minutes after I returned to get the views I needed: I saw two gaps of about equal width in the primary tips (P7 – P6 and P6 – P5) rather than the one big gap (P7 – P6) that is shown by “western” flycatchers. Matt Heindel had told me many years ago that this primary spacing was a critical mark for establishing the identification of a vagrant Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. The group located an Empidonax further to the north that foraged high in the alders where Todd Easterla had reported the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher yesterday. It stayed high and I was not able to get good scope views and couldn’t tell if it was a Yellow-bellied or Pacific-slope Flycatcher. We then couldn’t find any Empidonax for awhile and others (Curtis and Doug) started to arrive. After another half-hour or so, I found an Empidonax low in willows below the same alders – it looked good to me for Yellow-bellied Flycatcher and I took photographs. By the time Curtis and Doug got there, it had moved up into the alders and become more difficult. I thought the bird showed the two gaps (vs. one) in the primary tips of Yellow-bellied Flycatcher but this was discounted by the others as the “angle was bad” to evaluate this mark. Other birders, mostly local, but some from outside the county (Tom Benson and Brad Singer), arrived and the bird reappeared and showed better – some of us were now convinced that this was indeed a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. The bird became even more cooperative over the next hour or so and lots photographs by several observers were taken of the bird. Jon Dunn arrived at about noon and by about 1 pm, all observers seem to be convinced that it was a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. It remained silent, even in response to recorded song and calls, but it did perch low for extended periods of time that allowed all to obtain excellent views of the pertinent field marks. Most importantly, the primary spacing did indeed show the two bigger gaps between the tips of primaries 7 and 6 and 6 and 5 – not the one large gap between 7 and 6 on a “western” flycatcher.
Technical information
- Model
- Canon PowerShot ELPH 500 HS
- ISO
- 1600
- Focal length
- 18.8 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire, auto
- f-stop
- f/5.8
- Shutter speed
- 1/250 sec
- Dimensions
- 1984 pixels x 1488 pixels
- Original file size
- 807.97 KB