ML645242843

Observation details

A "tew" call, repeated but irregularly (Merlin eventually picked up on it after I had identified the bird; audio attached—please excuse the background geese) caught my ear. Several birds were sallying and chasing each other among the oak trees. There was at least one Townsend's solitaire: gray bird that perched upright, had white eye ring and white under the tailfeathers, which were long, had some buffy orange patches on the outsides of the wings and buffy stripes visible under the wings in flight. There may have been two or even three solitaires—at one point, I heard a similar call from farther along the railroad tracks—but the angle of the sun and the presence of several eastern bluebirds also sometimes sallying made it difficult to tell for sure how many solitaires were in the area. I had already checked the junipers at the top of the Bluffs, so it was a nice surprise to find the solitaire at the base of the Bluffs and possibly hunting bugs rather than berries on this warm day. (In the longer recording, the solitaire is more audible after around 1 min 28 s.)