Hi everyone - thanks to Anna's forwarding of my info request, I hooked up
with a very avid birder at UWisc. in Madison named Larry Parnell. We only
had about one day to go birding and it was pretty quiet. Below is our trip
list, (lifers marked with *), and one observation which if it is verified
was an extremely lucky catch - a juvenile scissor-tailed flycatcher. They
have had about 15 reports of this bird since 1970, usually in the fall. I
have a few questions, however, and hope someone out there who is more
familiar with this bird can help me. They are also trying to verify the
sighting in Wisconsin.

First, the flycatcher. The bill was black, and characteristically shaped
like the large flycatchers. Eye was large and black. Underparts were
pretty much uniformly white. Head and back were uniform light grey. Wings
were a uniform medium grey. Long tail (about the length of the body, but
not as long as an adult scissor-tailed) which it cocked at times. A little
smaller than a catbird. Undertail was light grey. Perched in a deciduous
tree near the edge of a forest bordering on a restored prairie. It made a
funny "gurgling" sound which I had never heard before - does anyone know if
this is typical? The wings also did not appear as black as they do in the
books, I wondered if anyone knows if there is color variation. In all other
respects, looks like the juvenile scissor-tailed flycatcher in NG. I have a
couple of pictures of a juv. s-t flycatcher that I took in Yucatan, and it
looks more like that than anything else we could find in the books.

Trip list:

Double-crested Cormorant
Mallard
Blue-winged Teal
American Coot
Canada Goose
Mute Swan
Great Blue Heron
Sandhill Crane
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull *
Solitary Sandpiper *
Killdeer
Greater Yellowlegs
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Virginia Rail
Rock Dove
Mourning Dove
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker *
Black-capped Chickadee
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (?)
Chimney Swift *
Grey Catbird
American Crow
Blue Jay *
European Starling
Palm Warbler *
Chestnut-sided Warbler *
Black-and-white Warbler *
Mourning Warbler *
Nashville Warbler
American Redstart *
Chipping Sparrow
American Robin
Eastern Bluebird *
Red-winged Blackbird
Cedar Waxwing
Northern Cardinal
American Goldfinch
House Finch
House Sparrow