On Mon, 15 Jun 1998, Scott Hoskin wrote:

> I had a chance to observe what I believed to be a Hammond's Flycatcher
> in the woods along the White River near Lake Wenatchee. As I had the
> bird in my scope it opened it's mouth a few times and then regurgitated
> a suprisingly large amount of bug parts. The interior of it's mouth was
> bright orange. Is this a feature of all empidonax flycatchers? I have
> searched through all the field guides including Kaufman's Advanced
> Birding and find no mention of it except in Peterson's Western Birds
> where it shows the orange mouth of a Nutting's Flycatcher. Do some
> species have it, whereas some do not?


I didn't see another reply to this. I guess a little bit of vague
information is better than none. Or as has been said elsewhere, if you
want to stimulate responses on the internet, don't post a question, post a
wrong answer. ;)

I believe the mouth color of Empidonax flycatchers is actually a useful
distinguishing feature for some species (though for obvious reasons it's
used more with birds in the hand). I recall, when I volunteered at an
east coast migration banding station in my teens, that an orange interior
of the mouth was considered a useful character for distinguishing what was
then called Traill's Flycatcher (since split into Willow and Alder) from
the other eastern Empidonax, whose mouths, if I recall correctly, were
pink.

Or maybe it was Acadian that had the orange mouth. I'm fuzzy on the
details, obviously, but the feature does vary between species, and
probably has some use in ID (at least in the hand).

Christopher E. Hill
Department of Zoology
University of Washington
P. O. Box 351800
Seattle, WA 98195-1800