ML579761091

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

I first noticed this bird while walking down to the large tree just south of the main grove. I immediately got Jeremy on the bird, when we both noted the slightly smaller size compared to other empids we had observed earlier in the morning. We observed the bird for about 5 seconds before it flew out, never to be seen again. I was looking down at my camera when it flew, so I didn’t notice which direction it went. During our observation, Jeremy called out “Is that a least fly??”, which it sure seemed to fit quite well. In the field, the bird seemed to be in an agitated state for the duration of the observation. It was flicking its tail upwards very frequently, but unfortunately remained silent for the duration of the encounter. The almost muscicapid-like position shown in the photos show how it looked when flicking its tail, unfortunately I didn’t get super good looks or photos when it was at rest. The round, compact look might be slightly exaggerated given the agitated state, and it was raising its crown feathers compared to when the head had a rounder look when first sighted. The field marks I noted while watching the bird are as follows: diminutive empid seemingly smaller than the westerns we had been seeing. The bird had a round headed appearance and looked relatively plump-bodied in comparison to the other empids of the morning, but this could be exaggerated by the position it was in. The bill looked fairly short and broad, giving a stubby and slightly rounded look. The wings and primary projection didn’t seem very long, but this was difficult to view with the movement. The coloration in the field looked largely monotone, with a grayish brown back, and olive tones to the upper back. It got a little bit lighter towards the neck and head, the head being a little grayer with less olive coloration. The underparts looked quite light in coloration, where I don’t remember noticing any significant yellow wash. The yellow in the photos seem to be in part due to the lighting, because it looks yellower overall (edit: I updated the photos with the unedited raw files, other than cropping and a bit of denoise). The eyering looked fairly thin and uniform, but still quite distinct. The primary projection can be hard to analyze in the photos because of the stick obscuring the end, but one of the photos barely shows the tip. I added an edited version of said photo with markings to delineate the primary projection.

Technical information

Model

NIKON Z 5

Lens

VR 150-600mm f/5-6.3G

ISO

160

Focal length

600 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/320 sec

Dimensions

1969 pixels x 1314 pixels

Original file size

950.75 KB