Subject: [Tweeters] Black Phoebe Skagit
Date: Aug 22 10:37:34 2010
From: Gary Bletsch - garybletsch at yahoo.com


Dear Tweeters,

On Friday, 8-20-2010, Bob Hamblin found a Black Phoebe at Wiley Slough. Unfortunately, Bob did not have his camera gear set up at the time, and did not get a photo. Bob has numerous decades of experience with this species; his video "34 species of Tyrant Flycatchers in Action" was sold through ABA Sales, back in the day of VHS cartridges.

Sorry for the late report--I was gone Saturday, when Bob phoned and left a message for me, and did not get to talk to him until today (8-22).

As Bob related to me, this was a six- to seven-inch-long tyrant flycatcher, with black head, breast, and back, and white underparts. He watched the bird repeatedly flying down and catching insects off the surface of the water, from a perch on a low blackberry branch, about a meter above the water. The observation lasted about two minutes. Bob thought it might have been an immature, since there were some brownish feathers on the upperparts. The bird was visible from the new boat-launch parking area, about a hundred meters out. Bob was looking out over the water, through the gap in the fencing that allows one to walk out onto the new dike that fronts this parking area.

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch ? Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA ? garybletsch at yahoo.com ? ?