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In the afternoon, I joined Robert Johanson, Melody Nagel-Hisey and the park warden to view the nesting pair of Western Flycatchers previously discovered by James Telford and observed earlier today by various Regina birders. At least 2 birds made frequent trips to feed the young and thereby showing the nest's location on a creek bank below some overhanging vegetation. James did not see the nest near the top of the creek bank which suggests the female was incubating when he observed them on July 4 and 5. Today, I observed 2 different birds flying to the nest but Melody thought she saw a third flycatcher. In 1989, Western flycatcher was split into 2 very similar species (Cordilleran Flycatcher [COFL] and Pacific-Slope Flycatcher[PSFL]). Fieldmarks. The bright yellow belly, broad-based bill with orange lower mandible without a black tip imply it is one of the Western Flycatcher species. Audio. An excellent reference for separating COFL vocalizations from those of PSFL is found from a link on Arch McCallum's Applied Bioacoustics website. The spectrogram of the COFL's Male Position Note (MPN) starts below 4 kHz and stops near 6 kHz whereas that for PSFL begins above 4 kHz and continues above 6 kHz. It is unbroken in PSFL but either broken or unbroken in COFL. My first audio file contains a single broken note that falls in the frequency range for COFL. This recording plus similar audio form other observers suggests the male bird is a COFL. I will post sound recordings of the dawn song in my July 11 ebird report for this site which will confirm that a singing male is a Cordilleran Flycatcher. The McCallum reference indicates that Female Position Note (FPN) of the PSFL has a frequency consistently above 7 kHz whereas that of the COFL is well below 7 kHz. My second audio file contains a series of short notes at about 6.4 kHz that were given by one of the birds that visited the nest. I conclude from its frequency, that it is a series of Female Position Notes given by the female Cordilleran Flycatcher as it communicates with its mate. Hence there is at least 1 male and 1 female Cordilleran Flycatcher feeding young at this nest. Please read my report from the early morning observations on July 11 for additional interesting conclusions.
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