ML612395410

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Seen at 9:33 a.m. We observed it on & off for about 45 minutes, while it was raining steadily. After observing this flycatcher in the field and looking at our photos on the computer, we decided that we could not positively ID this bird- yet. Below are some of the photos that we took of a very wet flycatcher. Perhaps others might be able to ID it. . .(JM 12/18/23) The bird was first located in shrubs in front of 35 Evergreen, but it spent most of its time in the 3 large pines in front of 25 Evergreen and flying down to the scrubs in front of that building. (JM 12/19/23) Now that I've seen & studied Henry's photos, I'm confident that this bird is an Ash-throated Flycatcher!! I hadn't seen his photos until after I submitted the checklist which I did fairly late last evening. I wasn't able to peruse them until this morning. I'm comparing Ash-throated with Great-crested & Brown-crested (myiarchus) flycatchers because they are the most similar to rule out. In the photos below (#'s 4,8 &10) (starting from the top left photo & continuing left to right for each row), one can see bland brownish upperparts. Great-crested & Brown-crested would show more olive sort of greenish looking coloration in their upperparts. In photos #5 & 9 one can see that the yellow colored belly is rather "pale" looking and terminates approximately 1/2 way up the front of this bird. On Great-crested it would be "bright" yellow & terminate perhaps 3/4 of the way up the front. On Brown-crested it would be brighter yellow than Ash-throated but not as bright yellow as Great-crested and would terminate somewhere in between where the other two species do. In photo # 8 one can see (to my eye) perhaps the most telling field mark captured. The 3 tertial feathers (the innermost ones farthest from the wingtips) show non-contrasting edges, rather drab looking. On Great-crested they would appear more sharply contrasting. Note: The innermost tertial feather on the left wing is pointing almost 90 degrees toward the right wing, instead of straight down toward the tail. I'm not comparing the Brown-crested tertials because they too can be rather drab looking. Instead, I'm going to mention that in the field this flycatcher didn't strike me as being large enough to be a Great-crested Flycatcher. Since a Brown-crested Flycatcher is even bigger than a Great-crested, I ruled it out. The final field mark and a rather significant one is that this flycatcher showed a whitish throat (seen in several of the photos) and a light gray colored breast. Of the three flycatchers, Ash-throated is considered to have the most whitish throat.

Technical information

Dimensions

1847 pixels x 1232 pixels

Original file size

1.51 MB