ML623963573

Observation details

Unbelievably there are two. Recorded and photographed. Photos, recordings and video to be uploaded soon. I arrived at 730. Almost immediately after getting out of my car, I thought I heard a Western Wood Pewee off in the distance, but background noise was so high and the vocal was faint so I thought I might have misheard as I did not hear it again. I walked around the east side of the sanctuary where it is more open because I was looking for flycatchers and often flycatchers become active on that side in the morning. At about 8 AM, I saw a pewee sitting on the powerline on Lamar street, east of the parking lot. It was backlit, but the shape of the bird looked like Western Wood-Pewee, flat back and tail in line with back. Its tail appeared short to me relative to eastern wood pewee, but because it was backlit and not calling, I was not sure. I walked closer to it and took some non-diagnostic backlit photos before it flushed and flew into the prairie area east of the sanctuary. I tried to get another photo but it flew off and disappeared.  I then walked around the interior of the sanctuary looking for warblers, but eventually walked over to the south edge of the sanctuary on Burnet St. A wood-pewee was sitting fairly low on a snag. This time, it was not backlit and I could immediately see that it had the structure of a western wood-pewee, a mostly dark lower mandible, very dark upperparts and face, dark chest and sides, no hint of an eye-ring, and dull wingbars with the upper wingbar being very dull or almost non-existent. The primary extension looked long and tail short (this a very subtle feature that requires a lot of experience). Every field mark checked for Western Wood-Pewee. I did not sent a message to others though because to be sure, one always wants to get a recording. (Upon returning home, I was also able to inspect the primary tips. In Western, based on work that Andy Birch and I have been working on, p4 is usually sticks out just a little beyond the longest tertial, whereas in Easter p4 is usually hidden beneath the tertials. This is probably an effect of Western having slightly longer wings than Eastern. In our birds, p4 can be seen). After waiting for a while, it finally called. A single not burry peeurr, with the last part rising. 100% Western Wood-Pewee. This is when I notified the Whats App. The bird was very flighty. Always sticking to snags and semi-open areas, flycatching incessantly and moving from the prairie to the east to the south edge of the sanctuary and across 8th St to Gulf St, west of the sanctuary. Sometimes it would land on powerlines. It would call every once in a while, usually right after it would land. During this time, I noticed that the wood-pewee had one white feather poking up on its crown. Odd. At about 900 AM, I saw another birder and called him over to show him the wood-pewee. We found it quickly on the south side of sanctuary, but it then flew west to some powerlines on Gulf St, calling. While we were looking at the pewee, I heard another burry peeurr from the west edge of the sanctuary and that's when I realized there were two! The second Western Wood-Pewee, popped up onto the powerlines on west side of sanctuary and we could see both pewees at the same time. From this point on, until I left at about 1230 PM, the two wood-pewees most of the time were apart from each other. But on several occasions, they sat on the same powerline within 10 feet of each other. I also saw one instance where the two interacted with each other aggressively. The second wood-pewee (without the white tuft on head) would give both the burry "peeurr" and the non-burry, more whistled "peeet" call (somewhat akin to eastern wood-pewee, but shorter). Plumage and structure wise, the second pewee fit again all the classic marks of a Western Wood-Pewee. Both appeared to be adults based on worn feathers I could see in flight. Remarkably, I did not see or hear any Eastern Wood-Pewees. There is a report on ebird from today of 1 Eastern Wood Pewee, but very likely the observers assumed it was an eastern. A great day for flycatchers. 3 Olive-sided Flycatchers, several Leasts, two Alders, and one somewhat elusive Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. Lots of Scissor-taileds around.