Hello Tweets,

I spent an hour today (1-2 PM) at the Trail's End chestnut farm. I was extremely excited to see the bird I had been dreaming about for over a year. But to my dismay, both pewees I saw were silent! The first was obviously a Western. But the second one got my adrenaline rushing. Though I felt a bit disappointed that it wasn't calling, I took many pictures and followed it around.

The pewee perched 20 feet away for about 3 minutes, but its bill was sometimes hidden, and my camera wasn't quite strong enough to capture very many good photos before it flew away into the chestnut trees and I glimpsed it once or twice more. At the advice of Mr. Williams, despite my reservations, I used playback repeatedly, with no response. I left feeling a bit disappointed, but also very curious about the bird that I had photographed. Question is - was it the Eastern?

I've been going over it with a few fellow birders online just now, and the following consensus was reached: "Your bird shows a tail that is longer than the primary projection, which is strong for eastern WP. You also have the downwards tail. It's not held in line with the primaries. Also, the underparts are light. Both wingbars are equally bright."

Also, the throat was noticeably paler than the vest, and I did notice a mostly pale lower mandible (which can be seen in a frame of a blurry video I got).

I posted a compilation of six of my photos on my Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/xBExNp

I would appreciate any further input, and I can't wait to go back and try again on Monday morning!

Good birding, Joshua Glant

Mercer Island, WA

Josh.n.glant at gmail.com

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20150827/93a31229/attachment.htm