am glad to see fresh pictures. My backyard is about bare of the birds. the summer ones have deserted me and the winter ones have not shown up yet. Just a few of the year around ones comeing and going. too much natural feed out there with everything going to seed and ripening.

very beautiful

I'm pretty sure your flycatcher is an Eastern Wood-Pewee.

Very nice pics as always.

-O-

Those pictures are beautiful!

What camera do you use? The zoom/focus is spot on!

I was going to say that the mystery flycatcher is also an Eastern Wood-Pewee. However, pewees don't have such distinct and bright white wing bars or such a pronounced eye ring, although pewees do have that bright orange lower bill. I think this bird more closely resembles an Alder Flycatcher due to the bright wing bars and defined eye ring. Alders also have a orangeish lower bill which could be amplified here due to the bright light and angle of the shot. That said, Empidonax flycatchers are notoriously difficult to ID without seeing behaviors and/or hearing the birds call.

BN

Thanks all for your replies,

orrin and BN - We thot this might be a Pewee also at first but weren't sure... so we requested an ID from 3 separate birding sites and got a variety of opinions. The (slight) majority seems to indicate the Alder Flycatcher, but the divergence of responses (and our own uncertainty) is testimony to how difficult it is to distinguish amongst the flycatcher species.

tzmd - We shoot with Canon Sx-IS cameras (S3 and S5), often with a Sony 1.7x TC lens attached. You can see our kit here:
http://kenn3d.smugmug.com/Other/My-Smug-Mug/5610917_wcnfB#365564075_JtiHw

thanks everybody,

Kenn

Here is a link that might be useful: Kenn & Temple's Camera

great set of shots kenn

As always, so good to see your Blues...our goldfinches brought their babies to the cone flowers we planted just for them this year. Thanks for the photos.

Gorgeous work there Kenn. Always so inspired by your photos.My fav in this bunch is the Phoebe.~~Angie

Hi Kenn, great pics! You are lucky to have hummers this late. I saw my last one on September 14th!

The Blues are beautiful (as usual) I just love Mr. B and Missy they have such character in their pics! Jsut curious how do you tell them apart from some of their older offspring or other possible Bluebirds that come into the area?

Thanks Mark, Holly, bandjzmom, terrene, and again to all for your replies. :)

terrene - As it turns out that was our last hummer shot for the year... they are gone now. Like most here we'll be watching for them again come Spring.

We get that question a lot, about how we recognize Missy and Mr.B ... and distinguish them from their grown fledges or other blues. They are older than their kids... ha, sounds funny I guess, but it's true and easy to see really. And of course we observe their behavior and individual habits and character. I think this is kinda like having multiple parakeets or other pets of the same species that neighbors or friends can't tell apart... but the "owners" can. Our Blues are wild birds and free of course but they have been here with us every day (and several times a day) for nearly four years now. We know them well, and they also know us.
They're not our birds, we're their people.

Kenn

Here is a link that might be useful: All Blue Review

really incredible pictures! thank you for sharing them!

Thank you for sharing your amazing pics--truely appreciated.