ML182118871

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Upon coming up a small hill (I was driving north) to the location of this observation, I noticed a bird in flight (it stayed within a few meters of the ground and was being chased by a Rufous Fantail) that was obviously unusual for the island. It was fairly long and slender with long wings and an average length tail and at very first glance I thought perhaps some species of swallow. It was all dark grey-brown on the upper-sides, including back, dorsal surface of wings and tail, and head and nape, with a white lower belly to vent and apparent white under wing coverts. By it's flight and overall presence, I quickly decided that it wasn't a swallow but a Muscicapid flycatcher! It landed, facing me, in the tangantangan trees along the east side of the road - I got about 7-10 seconds to look at it from about 10-12 meters before it flew further into the forest and didn't reappear for the ~20 minutes that I stayed in the area. It was all pretty quick and unexpected and the look I had wasn't long enough to even think of getting a camera on it while I was trying to note field marks through binocular. The bird perched very upright, had dark bill and eyes (the bill was slightly light colored or orange-ish at the very base, mostly the lower mandible), an obvious light eye-ring and lightish colored lores, white chin and throat, and white undersides aside from heavy, bold brownish-gray streaks on the upper breast to just above the belly (basically more than half-way down the front of the bird). From everything I saw it was a Gray-streaked Flycatcher - I've referenced a couple field guides (Brazil's Birds of East Asia - which I carry everywhere with me on Saipan - and Kennedy's Birds of the Philippines) and photos on line. There are records of the species migrating through Palau and it does winter in the Philippines and New Guinea. Photo taken at site of first obs.

Technical information

Model

NIKON D90

ISO

200

Focal length

300 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/4.0

Shutter speed

1/800 sec

Dimensions

1414 pixels x 1149 pixels

Original file size

622.49 KB