Seeking a bit of ID help here. After leafing back and forth through Sibley, this looks to me most similar to a common yellowthroat female, especially on account of the olive back and wings, but the pictures in Sibley led me to expect more yellow than is seen here, so I'm wondering if I'm just off base in the ID. Taken in the San Francisco Bay Area on October 11. Apologies for the blur which may be due to my poor technique or subject motion at 1/30 s. Any assistance would be most appreciated.
You should pay close attention to the size of the bird here. How big was it?
As big as Chickadee or almost as big as a Robin? A C. Yellowthroat coul easily
fit through the openings in the fence. This bird is larger than that.
It is one of the Catharus thrushes. I'm not the right person to ID this bird since I have no
experience with these birds on the Pacific coast. I will try anyway. My first reaction was it is not redish enough for a Hermit Thrush,
but that is only true for the eastern subspecies. On the other hand Swainsons has much more buffy face, again true for eastern
Swainson's. Too bad we can't see the breast. Was is heavily spotted or not? Do you have another image of the bird?
The combination of warm but not buffy face, redish tail and olive flanks, and the very late date I think makes this bird
a Hermit Thrush.
Thank you very much. Hermit Thrush was a candidate but the lack of visible spotting turned me away from that ID. Looking at the photo now there does seem to be a bit of spotting in the neck, and perhaps the rest is hidden by the bird's position. This is the only photo, and I didn't get a good sense of size but it was fairly close to the chain-link fence so indeed it must be larger than the size Sibley gives for a common yellowthroat.