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Help with ID

Discussion

6 replies
Posted by Daniel Loomis on July 19, 2009 at 10:54 PM
Help with ID
Captured in NW Fort Worth area, July 16, 2009. My first thought was an Eastern Wood Pewee, but I am not well versed in Flycatcher taxonomy.
Posted by Nate Chappell on July 20, 2009 at 12:58 AM
Wood Pewee would be my first guess as well, but I'm not really familiar with the eastern one.
Posted by Peter Conway on July 20, 2009 at 12:35 PM
We have them here, and it sure looks like an Eastern Wood Pewee to me.

Peter
Posted by Jim DeWitt on July 20, 2009 at 4:07 PM
Probably an Eastern by range. BNA notes:

Not safely separated from its sibling species, the Western Wood-Pewee (C. sordidulus), except by song. The clear pee-ah-wee! song of the Eastern is distinct from the harsh, buzzy, peeer of the Western.


The paler breast suggests an Eastern, but the Western's breast is pretty variable. The lower mandible is pretty dark for an Eastern, but that's variable, too, and in hatch year Easterns the bill is dark.

AR is near the westerly range limit for Easterns and the easterly limit for Westerns, but decent odds it's an Eastern. If you heard its call and remember it, you can be a little more definite...
Posted by Daniel Loomis on July 20, 2009 at 5:03 PM
The photo was taken at the Village Creek Drying Beds in Fort Worth, TX.
Posted by Jim DeWitt on July 21, 2009 at 12:25 PM
Yet another bad assumption on my part. :frown: I can now definitively say it is either a Western or Eastern Wood Pewee. :wink:
Posted by Daniel Loomis on July 21, 2009 at 12:41 PM
I love it when you are so decisive!