Unusual flycatcher

["Robert C. Perkins" <rperkins@infi.net>]

     This morning I covered Moore County east of Lobelia for the North 
American Migration Count.  I did well (for me) on warblers, including 
a male magnolia warbler.  What a striking bird!  I was perhaps a 
quarter mile east of the one-lane bridge on McPherson Road (DeLorme, 
page 60, D5) when I spotted an Empid flycatcher.  Over the course of 
several minutes I got varying views of it as it flitted through the 
bushes at the edge of the road:  olive-green back, pale yellow below, 
wing-bars.  Fortunately for me, it was calling as it foraged.  I 
heard it a dozen or so times.  In preparation for this trip, last 
night I listened to the recording of the Acadian flycatcher on my 
Stokes CD.  What I heard today was completely different: a 
two-syllable call--a clear, rising "wheep" amd a buzzy, falling 
"skeer."  I wrote it down as "Wheep-Skeer, upward-downward."  I have 
since listened to the Stokes CD again.  The only match is willow 
flycatcher!  It's not even on the Moore County list for the count.

Bob

-- 
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Robert C. Perkins, Ph.D.
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Methodist College, Fayetteville, NC 28311
910-630-7037     rperkins@methodist.edu