Hi Everyone,

Over the weekend, I had two different OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHERs in our neighborhood, one near our backyard. Generally, we see/hear a couple of this species moving through in the early summer, but prior to this weekend's sightings, we had none logged all year. The birds were characteristically hawking insects from the highest possible perches in the respective areas found. The two birds were almost certainly two different individuals as one showed the white side patches typical of juveniles, and the other had none (or none visible, at least). Nice to see a couple of these increasingly less common (in my experience, anyway) birds to add to the 2008 yard list.

This morning a black and white warbler (note lower case letters) landed on a tree branch 3 feet from our kitchen window. The yellow lores, however, said BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLER - and the closeness of the bird provided an excellent (though brief) opportunity to study this female. Females lack the namesake black throat. I have never had such a close look at one of these birds before and not seeing the black throat initially had me momentarily thinking Black and White Warbler. Alas, no rare bird report to fill out today...

: - )

Still, a nice bird to see (albeit briefly) so close.

John Tubbs
Snoqualmie, WA
johntubbs at comcast.net
www.tubbsphoto.com