Hal - thanks for sending out the heads-up to Tweeters. Let me give a little
more information.

Around 11:30 a.m. I was making my way counterclockwise around the nature loop
at Marymoor Park. Just as I was about to reach the east end of the boardwalk,
I noticed birds in the ash tree right above the path. There were at least two
Townsend's Warblers, a couple of Purple Finch, some Yellow-rumped Warbler, a
Golden-crowned Kinglet, and then I saw something that made my jaw drop -- a
small blue-gray backed bird with a pure white underside.

The sun was shining brilliantly on the bird, and I was only 20 yards away. I
was pretty sure from the first moment I saw it that it was a gnatcatcher,
having seen them 8 times previously elsewhere, all in the last two years. It
was slightly smaller than the YRWAs, and decidedly larger than the GCKI. The
entire back, including the top and sides of the head were a nice, even,
beautiful blue-gray (not as blue as the sky). The underside, from throat to
undetail coverts was pure glistening white. The wings tended towards black at
the tips, and there were very clear white shafts or white edges to (I think
they'd be) the primary coverts. The gray extended down the side of the face,
but there was no distinct line between the gray and the white. The eye was
black, with at thick, complete, white eye-ring. The bill was long, thin, and
fairly straight. I could not be sure of the bill color. The tail was black
with white lines or edges (dorsally), and was an indistinct non-black
ventrally. It may have been white, but it looked less white than the rest of
the underside. The tail was pretty long. The feet and legs were shiny black.

>From the back, with a dorsal view, the black-and-white wing tips formed a vee,
with the gray rump filling in the vee. The tail then jutted out black with
white edges or lines. Perhaps because the tail wasn't fanned at all, it wasn't
really obvious whether the white was outside feathers or was feather edging or
really visible feather shafts.

Behaviorally, the bird was very active, and generally behaved like a kinglet,
including hovering at least one or two times. Once it sat still for at least
30 seconds, but most of the time it was moving from branch to branch quickly.
It seemed to stay in the middle elevation of the trees, and seemed to stay on
the ends of the branches.

I watched the bird for at least two minutes initially. Then a Yellow-rumped
Warbler chased it off. At that point, I wrote up field notes, including a
really lousy picture. Then I looked in the book. It was very much like the
the picture of the female BGGN in the NGS guide -- i.e. it did not have any
black or charcoal caps or lines on the head. I did not note, however, any of
the fancy undertail patterning shown in that picture, but I had never had a
good look (since I was not under the bird).

About a minute later, I relocated the bird in another tree northwest of the
first. I was a bit further away and the light was not as good. I tried,
fairly unsuccessfully, to get views of the underside of the tail -- the bird
just moved around too much. I did see the bird raise its tail in a bit of a
wren-like fashion several times. When it did this, the tail would be up at
about a 45 degree angle from the horizontal, and the pointed wings would be
extending beyond the rump horizontally quite a bit (though not nearly as far as
the tail).

About three or four times, I thought I heard the bird make a call - either a
Brrrrt or a Beeeeet type sound. I couldn't be positive it was the BGGN that
was making the call.

Again, a Yellow-rumped Warbler chased it off, and I could not find it again.

At that point, I high-tailed it to the park office to call the BirdBox and to
grab my camera. I went back out to the east end of the boardwalk, and spent
the next two hours searching (including bushwacking through bunches of thickets
trying to get where I could see additional large trees) to no avail.
So I don't have any photos (though I do have plenty of scratches, and a nasty
rash from some nettles).

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland WA
== hummer at isomedia.com

----- Original Message -----
From: Hal Opperman <halop at accessone.com>
To: tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 1999 12:53 PM
Subject: RBA: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher in Redmond, WA


> Michael Hobbs called the Washington BirdBox today around noon to report a
> BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER at Marymoor Park. He found the bird at about 11:30
> in trees at the end of the boardwalk.
>
> The BirdBox number is (425) 454-2662.
>
> Hal Opperman
> Medina, Washington
> mailto:halop at accessone.com
>