Tuesday, May 14, 2013

A brief stop on a cool morning


With very limited time this morning I decided to spend it checking out the Barrett Street marsh for a possible Sora.  I had no luck with finding a Sora but did have at least three Virginia Rails sounding off from the marsh and got fantastic views of one that walked by me within ten feet.  The best birds of the day occurred not long before I was leaving when an Alder Flycatcher (#194) started calling.  After listening to the bird for few minutes give its ‘free-beer’ call from across the marsh I then had a Willow Flycatcher (#195) give its call ‘fitz bew’ fairly close and watched the bird calling several times.  Although I was never able to see them both calling at the exact same time I feel confident in the identification.  There is a chance the same bird gave the two different calls but that seems highly unlikely.  I have seen some information recently that Alder and Willow are very rare at this date but the Alder Flycatcher today beats my old record by just a couple days and I have had Willow Flycatcher a few days earlier then this date in the past.

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