faerye ,
@faerye@pie.gd avatar

It’s difficult to say which is harder:

  1. The multiple-open-references identification of the photos of yesterday’s Weird (but still substantially like every flycatcher) Flycatcher; 😰

Or 2. the writing and submission of one’s eBird report justifying one’s daring choice to identify the flycatcher at all, let alone assert (with no audio evidence!) that it is a locally RARE Willow Flycatcher. 😬

The flycatcher has (kindly) turned that big triangular beak toward the camera, giving us a head-on look at it. The bird’s big eyes look very odd seen to either side of its head this way, and the brash triangular bill is clearly quite broad at the base, above the white throat of the sturdy little tyrant! (I’m not judging it for terrorizing insects on the wing: that’s the family name, Tyrannidae!)

A stocky flycatcher perched on a vertical snag branch against a bright blue desert sky. It has a pale underbelly, gray slightly fluffy head, and darker wings with white wing bars, like basically every flycatcher. This one, though, has a chunkier head in proportion to its body, and a tail that seems to have folded into a moderate rectangle, not the more acrobatic accessory some have. Its dark eye is set further back from its bill and has no eye ring to speak of; and most of all, that insect-killing bill, sharp with a tiny killing hook, is orange on the bottom and broad! Just pointy and prominent and not very much like every other flycatcher.
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