ML20913591

Observation details

Small Empidonax foraging at low and medium heights in small willows and edges of nearby dense tangles. Bird was olive-green above, fairly uniformly bright yellow below, with a broad, pale, teardrop-shaped eyering and two well-defined whitish wing bars. The bird occasionally flicked its wings quickly while perched, somewhat like a Least Flycatcher, but the primary extension was much longer than that of Least Flycatcher. Periodically gave an up slurred, two part "su-weet" call, very different from any call of Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. There is no doubt in my mind that this bird is of the Western Flycatcher complex, either Cordilleran or Pacific Slope Flycatcher. Good photos will be uploaded and I did get a fairly decent recording of several iterations of its call. I was on location shortly after 8 a.m. but the bird did not appear until about 0930, about 10 minutes after the sun broke through overcast skies.