Category Archives: Flycatcher

Bird Migration- August Field Notes

September 6, 2017Flycatcher, Hummingbirds, Warblersnmckown

They Come, They Go

August 10

The House Wrens that were so prevalent in our yard during the spring and summer are suddenly no where to be found. I miss their bright beautiful songs and their industrious display and hunting behaviors. I’ll keep watching, but I’m pretty sure they are laying low, going through their molts, taking advantage of the ground level hunting opportunities and resting up for migration.

Rose Breasted Grosbeaks and Baltimore Orioles who were so busily tending to their fledglings only a week ago are no longer showing themselves. I can see an abandoned Oriole nest from my window, hanging by only a few threads, in disarray and looking quite uninhabitable. One good wind will bring it down.

The Hummers never disappoint…. always flitting in and out, displaying, chasing, divebombing… ever watchful. They will continue their activities through September undeterred, no matter how close the camera and flash intrude into their escapades. Why these diminutive birds don’t feel the biological urge to rest before their long migratory journey ahead I’ll never know.

Ruby Throated Hummer — Hummers Let the Camera Get Close.
Female Ruby Throated Hummingbird.
ISO400; f/7.1; 1/250 Second.

August 15

I no longer hear the the cacophony of bird song that use to fill the air in early morning, even though migrators like Robins, Red Winged Blackbirds, Gold Finches, Song Sparrows, House Finches, Towhees, and Wood Thrushes are still around. No journey ahead for Titmice, Chickadees, Cardinals, most woodpeckers and doves. Is it more of a relief to stay through the MI winter or face the perils of migration?

I look around and note that the Gray Catbirds, Cowbirds, Phoebes, and Chipping Sparrows are not showing themselves in our yard anymore.

August 20

Glimpses of yellow flash around the fountain. Too quick to get an ID shot. We have a nesting pair of American Redstart Warblers so what I see may be the female. Both cameras are set up in different locations in the house. Soon I’ll have those windows open most of the day…..mosquitoes permitting.

August 25

Leaves are still green and heavy on the trees, making bird ID and tracking birds with a long lens very difficult. Cicadas are droning -alternately loud then fading. It’s hot and muggy here in SW MI. The windows are open to facilitate a clear shot and that makes for a damp and sticky house. I have the fans going to help keep out the mosquitos.

Sunny with a strong east wind today. I saw a Tennessee Warbler, a Red Eyed Vireo and one Merlin Falcon on Lakeshore Drive. Got in a couple shots to confirm ID but the resulting images were awful.

August 26

Spent most of the day watching, but only saw a Least Flycatcher peeking around in his hiding place in the Serviceberry tree. A few gold leaves have a tentative hold to their branches.

August 27

A rain storm –might it bring some traveling warblers down to the understory trees? Two cameras on swivel tripod heads facing different directions in the library. I keep checking other possible warbler landing spots–like near the dining room, in back near the fountain or off the front porch. Thinking about relocating one of the cameras… but doesn’t make sense to keep moving the equipment unless I see more activity in that location. I can stretch myself only so far. Uneven cloud cover blankets the yard with intermittent light, mostly sparse. Each camera has a flash and telephoto extender attached. (I fiddled with the wires on my old Canon 580 flash with old Better Beamer flash extender. So far, it’s been working, although I don’t know how accurate the Flash enhanced exposure readings will be.) The rain tickles the leaves. So much movement to track even before I point the lens.

Last year on this date, two warblers were feasting on the bugs on the Serviceberry trees (A Black Throated Green Warbler male and a female Magnolia Warbler). This year I saw and managed a shot of a perky little Chestnut Sided Warbler. (See below. Female or first year male…so different looking than the mature males.) The flash intensity was reduced to -2/3. (Surprisingly the flash blast doesn’t seem to worry the birds.)

Female Chestnut Sided Warbler — Chestnut Sided Warbler
An Early Arrival
ISO1000; f/9; 1/250 Second

The usual birds are out and about….. Titmice, Blue Jays, Gold Finches, Downy Woodpeckers. That’s good. It seems that birds find comfort and safety in crowds…. much more likely to have a warbler sighting when there’s lots of other activity. I take a few shots of the oft photographed faithfuls/dependables to review the exposure settings and flash intensity. Keeps me going.

August 31

Keep hoping for a migrating newcomer, but no luck. I was happy to get ID shots of a Wilson’s Warbler and female Magnolia Warbler. I look forward to September… migration has only just begun.

Photographing A Great Crested Flycatcher-Nest Adornment

July 12, 2017Flycatchernmckown

Photographing the Great Crested Flycatcher

This little Great Crested Flycatcher is a new bird for me. My bird books note that this species is a common neotropical migrant which nests in South West MI and a wide swath of the Eastern United States. The plumage on the males and females looks identical… gray and reddish brown feathers accented with a lemon yellow belly. There’s not much of a crest….let alone a “great crest” on this bird’s somewhat oversized head.

There are so many look-alike species of flycatchers that it is gratifying to photograph one that looks so distinctive and can be easily identified. When I spotted him, I wasn’t quite to the point where I was going to put the camera away, but the windows had been shut, indicating that quality of light and my expectations had seriously dwindled. He perched right near my dirty window. I could not risk cranking the window open, so I took the shot through it, knowing that sharpness and detail would be subpar in the resulting image. After he flew off, I opened the window and waited for approximately 30 minutes, this time with my camera at the ready. He did not come back.

Photo of Great Crested Flycatcher — Great Crested Flycatcher.
Mid day Harsh Light
Somewhat tempered
in Post Processing.
ISO1250; f/8; 1/250 Second

Nest Adornment

These secondary cavity nesters make their homes in decomposing standing deadwood (SNAGS), frequently in the remains of holes made and abandoned by woodpeckers. They prefer to reside high in the leafy tree canopies and eat a wide assortment of insects -often snatching them in mid air. A quirky habit of the Great Crested Flycatcher is that they often add a scaly shed snakeskin adornment to its nest. If it can’t find that, it may substitute pieces of crinkly paper or plastic. This makes me wonder why some birds go through the trouble of decorating their nests. Is it genetic or cultural, meant to draw attention or hide something? Is it an attempt to accessorize, or is it just meaningless adornment? Whatever, it is fascinating.

Repairing Image Highlights in Lightroom

The midday sun was creating harsh shadows when I took this photo. The histogram in Lightroom indicated that some of the highlights in the image (above) were overly bright, but not irretrievably clipped or blown out. (NOTE: You can tell there’s no clipping if the Lightroom clipping warning triangle to the right of the histogram is black.) This meant that I would be able to bring back most of the image detail by reducing the highlights… (ie.moving the highlight slider to the left). After a little time in post processing, the resulting image is not as bad as I thought it would be.

Vagrant?

When I first spotted this Great Creasted Flycatcher, I secretly hoped that he was an off-course vagrant. He is not. No doubt he is just one of many bird species who lives high above in the tree canopy and rarely makes an appearance. (NOTE: “A bird is considered vagrant if it strays far outside its expected breeding, wintering or migrating range. The key factor in defining vagrant is the distance – a bird that is just barely outside its normal range is not usually considered vagrant, but a bird found hundreds of miles from its familiar territory is a vagrant.”)

Photographing Hard to ID Flycatchers

June 19, 2014Flycatcher, Vireosnmckown

Bird Photos Are Not Always Enough

Last week, while roaming in the Allegan State Game Area, I photographed what I knew to be some species of flycatcher. To get a more precise ID, I uploaded the photo to WhatBird.com. The responses I got back from the experts at What Bird helped me understand how complex the identification for empidonax flycatchers can be. Clear photographs just aren’t enough for every ID.

Flycatcher Photo — Adler/Willow -aka Traills Flycatcher
ISO 640; f/9.0; 1/800 Second

ID Quandary on This Flycatcher

A little background: Back in the 70’s, the Alder flycatcher and the Willow flycatcher (once considered to be the same species of bird and named the Traills Flycatcher) were determined by researchers to be two separate species. One of the most definitive characteristic that separated them was the width of their eye ring. The Willow shows a less defined eye ring compared with the Alder’s more distinctive eye ring. To complicate matters, other Empid flycatchers, like the Least flycatcher, have similar ID characteristics to the Willow/Adler Flycatcher.

Even with the bird-in-hand, the experts agreed that empidonax flycatchers are very difficult to tell apart. The discussion on the WhatBird site was that this bird I photographed was either a Least Flycatcher or a Willow/Adler or Traills Flycatcher (Traills=the former name before they were pronounced 2 different species.) Eventually, the consensus was that it was not a Least (due to the rather faint eye ring).

Pyle Guide

The bird ID discussion on this little flycatcher included a reference to “Pyle”. A quick web search identified Pyle as a technical birding ID guide, often used when precise reference information about plumage, age, sex, wing, tail, bill measurements, etc. of birds is needed. The Pyle guide (Identification Guide to North American Birds by author Peter Pyle) is the authoritative source on Bird ID for researchers, bird banders, and bird ID experts. So much detail is included in Pyles that it is mostly useful when you have the bird-in-hand.

Not a Birding Field Guide

The purpose of the Pyle guide is to document complete, accurate and uniform ID criteria for ornithologists and other people engaged in bird research. After all, there has to be an authoritative reference guide for bird banders to use. Bird banding based on best guesses of well meaning birders would not have scientific value. This rather intimidating, over-the-top resource is certainly not targeted for bird photographers like me, nor is it a useful guide to take in the field with your binoculars.

Photo of Flycatcher — Adler/Willow aka Traills Flycatcher
ISO 640; f/9.0; 1/800 Second

Final Word on This ID

Birding expert Steve Tucker helped finalize this bird ID for me. He wrote:

“With all the power vested in me by the Global Birder Ranking System, I pronounce your bird to be a Willow or Alder Flycatcher (in other words, Traill’s). Empids can certainly be variable, but I have never seen a Least with such a thin eyering.”

Steve’s excellent blog posting about hard to ID flycatchers, The Truth of Empidonax can be found at this link.

Will I Ever Get Better at Bird ID?

And…. just when I thought I was making progress with my bird ID skills, I discovered that what I thought was a flycatcher (who knows what kind) was, in fact, a Warbling Vireo. See Photo Below. WhatBird experts explained that the eyebrow plumage (known as the supercilium) starting at the beak and ending near the rear of the head is not a characteristic of flycatchers. In addition, the wing bars are different and the bill on the Warbling Vireo is not as broad across the base as the bill of a flycatcher.

It’s all about paying attention to the details.

Warbling Vireo Singing His Heart Out. Most definitely
NOT a Flycatcher. Note the eyebrow plumage (known as the supercilium)
starting at the beak and ending near the rear of the head.
ISO 640; f/11; 1/1000 Second

Note to self: Always check with the bird ID experts before posting a bird photo.

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