Phoebe, Peewee, or Flycatcher?

[Julie Brown]

Or none of the above? I'm stumped!
Huge crop. Location: Rocky Mountain National Park

[John Chardine]

Julie- These are tough, very tough! Just a small pedantic point first, Phoebes and Pewees are flycatchers too. But I know what you meant.

There isn't much of an eye-ring here and I don't see the yellow belly or dark bill of the phoebe. The Empidonax flycatchers tend to have stronger eye-rings. So I would go with an Eastern Wood-Pewee as a start.

Any other bids ladies and gentlemen?

[Julie Brown]

Thanks John. I'm glad you know what I meant. I had thought it might be a Least Flycatcher. Glad I wasn't that far off. I was leaning toward western wood-peewee (Colorado), but might be Eastern. Are Eastern Wood-Peewees in the Rocky Mountains?

[Meesh Fink]

Thanks John. I'm glad you know what I meant. I had thought it might be a Least Flycatcher. Glad I wasn't that far off. I was leaning toward western wood-peewee (Colorado), but might be Eastern. Are Eastern Wood-Peewees in the Rocky Mountains?

+1 for Western Wood Pewee :)

[John Chardine]

Agree. I look at your location and ignored where you said you made the image!

[Julie Brown]

Thanks John and Meesh. This is what I had concluded from my NAS western field guide. :)

[Richard Stern]

Hi,

It certainly looks like a Wood-pewee, as against any other family of Flycatchers (e.g. Phoebe or Empidonax) to me. But apparently Eastern and Western Wood-pewees are virtually indistinguishable by sight, even in the hand, and can only be reliably separated by different vocalizations and range. As in all N.American birds, there is excellent and detailed info. on line at The Birds of N.America Online, from Cornell (you have to buy a subscription, but IMHO it's worth it for anybody seriously interested in N.American birds, and there are also some pretty good pictures).

Richard

[Julie Brown]

Thank you for that info, Richard. I regularly visit Cornell's All About Birds, and I will definitely check out the subscription service.:)