May 26, 2007 Empids Along the Lake.

This morning I went to the lake. Warm, cloudy and light rain but sometimes weather like this is great for birds. Driving along the parkway, to the last parking area, of the park, I could hear Warblers in the trees. Blackpoll, Tennessee, Chestnut-sided. In the cottonwoods, more warblers, A Grey-cheeked Thrush, my first of the season offers a fabulous look. Having been interested in birds since I was a child, I have never had the trouble many do with identification. Sure I make mistakes, but it does not take much practice and soon I have it down. I tell people woodland Thrushes are easy. It is a matter of red and green. Reddish head is Wood, reddish tail is Hermit, reddish all over is Veery. Gray-green with an eye ring is Swainson’s, without is Gray-cheeked. There are other differences too but those are the most obvious. There is one other species. Bicknell’s Thrush, very similar to Gray-cheeked but it is found in a specialized habitat of New England, mountain tops

It was fun seeing lots of Warblers, this morning. There were female Blackpolls, everywhere, and an abundance of Canadas, but I really enjoyed were the empids. These are the small flycatchers of the genus empidonax. While empids are not particularly colorful, I find them to be very cute. They have large heads and big dark eyes. There are 5 species of empids expected in the east. Least, Willow, Alder, Acadian and Yellow-bellied Flycatchers. There was a time when field identification of these was considered impossible without hearing them. They all have distinct calls or songs, so it was possible to identify by song and habitat. But not by sight. Our advanced high quality optics have changed that for the most part. Especially if the birds have fresh feathers Identifying empids is largely a matter of bills, bellies, and eye rings. Least has a very short bill and an obvious eye ring. Willow and Alder are difficult to separate and were once lumped into the Traills species. Both have long bills, weak eye rings, and long primary tip extensions. Acadian has a long bill and is greener on the upper parts, has a complete eye ring, and long primary tips. Yellow-bellied is the easiest because it has the most color. Green upper parts and yellow green underneath with an obvious eye ring. With a little practice and good optics these differences start to pop out. With inferior optics, forget it. Also learning the songs makes things even easier. Least is che-bek, Willow, fitz bew, Alder fee be o, Acadian, spit see, and Yellow-bellied, chew-ee.

We had 4 empid species this morning. The only miss was Acadian. Ray and I had what we both agreed was one of the most magnificent looks at a Yellow-bellied we had ever had. And that is saying something because we have both had a lot of looks!

This afternoon I put out an orange for the Oriole. Mr. came to the living room window and sang but I have not seen him on the orange as yet. Juncos are on the feeder an in the yard, but the birds are not singing much as I write. Everything is very lush in the wet. While beautiful I would like to feel the baking warmth of the sun.

Once again the weather forecast was wrong. The forecast yesterday was for partly cloudy with a low chance of rain. What we have is overcast with intermittent rain.