At 8:48am, the Citrine Wagtail landed about 50 meters to the northwest of me, about 20 meters east northeast of the still-smoldering slash pile, next to a pool of water in the field. (This pool is right next to the churned-up earth north of what remains of the second slash pile. I use directions based on using the road and ditch as going north/south.)

It stayed less than 15 seconds, then flew up and into a rather rollercoaster flight pattern through the gap in the willows where the two-plank "bridge" is. As it flew, it gave a sort of "tseep" call three times. It looked almost like a flying pencil: thin and long body shape.

I had a good binocular view after it landed. It flew in from behind the pile, but I'm not exactly sure of the direction: I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye as it landed, knew from experience that it was a wagtail, and through binoculars saw the identifying markings as shown in the many photos of this bird. I couldn't see any yellow on it. As I tried to unzip my scope (rain was steady, not the showers that were predicted), the bird flew up and past me. I followed it over the plank bridge but lost sight of it almost immediately in the field to the east. After trying to locate it for about a half-hour, I decided to pack it in - too much wind and rain for this old guy.

Note: Yesterday, Lynn saw a longish, thin bird fly a bit farther north of where I saw it. He described the flight pattern to us - much the same as I saw. He said it was definitely not a woodpecker. We tried to locate that bird, but were unsuccessful. My thought today, after seeing the wagtail in flight, is that Lynn saw the wagtail yesterday. Unfortunately, none of us heard a flight call at that time.

Thanks to all of you who sent notes to me voicing thoughts on success. Those thoughts were on my mind as I stood in the cold and rain, wondering why the heck I kept looking for this bird. Those thoughts didn't keep me dry, but definitely kept me warm.

May all your birds be identified,
Denis DeSilvis
avnacrs4birds at outlook.com


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