ML642247349

Observation details

Medium-tailed empid with minimal upper/underparts contrast, short primary extension, longer bill with a dark tip. Foraging low, just a few feet off the ground. Lifer, Nebraska #352, Nebraska year #344 This bird immediately stood out to me as very gray overall and a potential Dusky, but I tempered my hopes and took my time since I've been tricked many times this year by weird Least Flycatchers. Luckily, this bird was cooperative and cycled between a few perches in young willows for about 15 minutes on the west end of the lake. It was flicking in its tail quite a bit, but not dipping like a Phoebe, so I eliminated Gray. The bill seemed rather long and the head was not peaked, so that eliminated Hammond's. With only Least left, I focused on the contrast between upper/under/throat and the wing panel. Overall the contrast is pretty low, especially between the head and the flanks. The wing bars were quite dull, not bright (juvenile), but the wing panel was a duller gray brown, giving less contrast with the wing bars and back. That, plus the long bill and proportionally long tail led to my conclusion of Dusky. Edit: (12/21 comments from Cin-Ty Lee): "I also would call this a Dusky but surprisingly, Dusky and Least can look very similar. I agree though with the above reasoning from Zac [low contrast wingbars and wing panel (with background color more brown than black), a bill that looks slightly long for Least, and the lack of throat contrast]. One thing though is that juv Least tends to be quite bold in wingbars and wing panel, which is not the case in this bird. Also, Least tends to have a slightly longer P7-P6 than Dusky, so P7 sticks out a little more. P6-P5 in Least is usually just a bit longer than P5-P4. In Dusky, P7 is quite short and often not visible or barely visible, so P6 is often the longest primary tip exposed. In Dusky, P6-P5 is about equal to P5-P4. While the photos aren't good enough to number primaries exactly, the fact that the terminal and subterminal ptip spacings look equal in one of the photos is a very good indicator of Dusky (versus Least) since Least would typically have a bit of P7 showing."