His original assumption that it must be a Great-crested Flycatcher still
tripped the eBird filters because October is late for that species to
still be in Arkansas. The rare bird alert got a few other birders
looking at the photos, and a discussion began around what this bird
actually could be.
Great-crested Flycatcher belongs to a genus of tyrant flycatchers with
many members spread across the Americas that can all look quite similar.
In Arkansas our only regularly-occurring Myiarchus is Great-crested
Flycatcher, but there have been at least two instances of the more
western Ash-throated Flycatcher wandering into Arkansas (here’s the only
photographed record from 20 Dec 2009:
<https://ebird.org/checklist/S5660527)>
A closer look at Robert’s photos led to the conclusion that this bird
was at least not Great-crested, with the pattern on the underside of the
tail being a better fit for Ash-throated. However, other features
weren’t quite squaring up for Ash-throated though (seemingly large bill,
perhaps too colorful). Various debates on FB groups and Slack channels
led us to explore the possibility of this being a Brown-crested
Flycatcher (which would be an exceptional record for the species, and a
first state record) but cooler heads finally prevailed with a consensus
building around Ash-throated Flycatcher.
Just to make sure, we reached out to the authors of the recently-
released “Field Guide to North American Flycatchers: Kingbirds and
Myiarchus,” Cin-Ty Lee and Andrew Bird. Their impression was that the
tail pattern of dark edges that wrap around the tip definitively
identifies the bird as Ash-throated, and that it looks like a hatch-year
bird.
So we’re finally willing to confirm this bird as Ash-throated
Flycatcher: a first record for Benton County and just the third record
for the state of Arkansas.
Congrats to Robert Langston on a great find! I wish we could have gotten
more folks out to look for this bird, but alas, sometimes, these things
take time to sort themselves out. It's a great example of how tricky
bird identification can be and the importance of documentation!
