There were a bunch of interesting birds photographed yesterday, including the following little guy (or gal) who hung around for a nice series of shots:
The shot above by txbird is my favorite, I think, but click through and browse the whole sequence. I’m comfortable calling that an Empidonax flycatcher, but beyond that I don’t even want to guess. Judging by the range maps in Sibley, I could see that being any of Acadian, Yellow-bellied, Willow, Alder, or Least. Any experts want to weigh in? It would be the game’s first Empidonax, but unless they give us an “Empidonax (spp.)” ID, I don’t think it’s ever going to be counted.
Right after that a kingbird gave us some nice views. Here are shots by leacox, txbird, and leacox (respectively):
A few of them were ID’d as Western Kingbird, which I certainly have no objection to. It almost looks to me like there are white outer tail feathers in that first shot, which would help with that ID, though it bothers me that they don’t show up in any of the other shots.
Anyway, congratulations to everyone who got shots of these great, if tantalizing, birds.