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From: sandee@sun16 (Daan Sandee)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Flycatchers
Message-ID: <585@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: 31 Aug 90 13:20:12 GMT
References: <6881@milton.u.washington.edu>
Sender: news@sun13.scri.fsu.edu
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Organization: SCRI, Florida State University
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In article <6881@milton.u.washington.edu> amber@scott.biostat.washington.edu writes:
>Last weekend at a park in Carnation, Washington ...
>What I think I saw:
>
>A large flycatcher, about the same size as the Cedar Waxwing that was
>there too.  Bill, orange and black, thick.  I really think it was an
>Olive-sided Flycatcher because it had dark flanks with white (to yellowish)
>from neck to toes  --all the way down the breast, that is.  But it was so
>difficult to identify.  I'm not really sure if that is what I saw.  Did
>not see any white tufts behind/between the wings on the back.
>
>On the branch briefly with this bird was another bird which I would
>have identified as one of the Empidonax flycatchers.  It was smaller,
>by what looked to be almost three inches.  Much lighter colored above,
>all dark bill (?)
>
>The problem is, the person I was with was saying that the first bird
>was one of the Empidonax flycatchers (Willow).  ARGH!

ARGH is right. Anybody who calls a pewee-type bird a Willow Flycatcher has
still a lot to learn about flycatchers. Myself, although I know to distinguish
between those, would *never* call a Willow Flycatcher unless by voice and in
the proper nesting habitat.
>
>I KNOW I saw a Western Wood Pewee in the bushes.  This was a positive ID.
>
>So, basically I've gotten myself all confused, comparing these birds
>to one another, trying to get an idea of what I really saw and what it
>all meant.
>
>Any comments?

The bigger bird : must have been a pewee-type. Two choices in your area :
Western Wood-Pewee and Olive-sided. Typically distinguished (a) by voice
and (b) the funny white tufts that may be visible on the back. Failing
that, the underside coloring : Olive-sided had very dark flanks, leaving
a thin white line down the breast (the waistcoat effect). Wood-Pewee has
smudgy dark breast and much less dark down the flanks, but this is very
variable ; some pewees *may* have a white partitioning line down the
breast.
With experience, the birds are easy to tell apart by general impression,
size, and shape, what the British like to call jizz. Olive-sided is
a much stronger-looking bird, bigger head, bigger bill, shorter tail.
Likes to be right in top of a tree, whereas the pewee uses a branch a bit
below the top.
The smaller bird will have been an empid, and that's about all that anyone
could say about it. In your area, that means Hammond's, Willow, or
Pacific-slope ("Western") Flycatcher. Dusky and Gray stay east of the
Cascades.
Read Ken Kaufmann's excellent book, "A Field Guide to Advanced Birding".
He has much to say about empids. If it leaves you with the impression that
empids are impossible to identify for ordinary mortals like you and me,
I wouldn't blame you.

Daan Sandee                                           sandee@sun16.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052  (904) 644-7045