Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 09:05:59 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Lovelace, Glen" Subject: Empidonax question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Hello again, Also yesterday at Oak Grove, I encountered a small flycatcher. I am admittedly no good with empidonax flycatchers that do not sing for me, so I thought I would seek some help. Here is what I found: I heard a distinct 'whit' call note given. The 'wh' quality of the note caught my ear as being different from a chip sort of a sound. I located the bird in a low branch of a maple in my parents yard (an open area with shade trees). It was mostly obscured by another branch so I did not get the greatest look at it. I could see the head above the shoulder and the tail. It was a noticably smaller bird than the Pewee I had seen earlier. Generally gray in color with a thin complete white eye ring. The lower mandible was pale/fleshy color, but it seemed to be dark at the very tip. As I tried to get a better vantage point, the flew directly over my head, over the house and disappeared. Now for my question - I would like to call this bird a Least Flycatcher, but being a state bird and a homelist bird, I want to be certain. The field guide (Natl Geo) descibes the call note as 'whit' and I listened to my Peterson's CD and it matches better than anything else. Is the Least Fly call note distinctive enough to make the call on that alone or is another flycatcher similar? Or perhaps call note with a couple other details would rule out another species? Thanks in adavnce, Glen Lovelace III Seaford, DE ======================================================================== To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================== == ========================================================================