{"id":87458,"date":"2020-07-16T05:47:56","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T11:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=87458"},"modified":"2020-07-16T06:39:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T12:39:09","slug":"willow-flycatcher-one-of-the-aggravating-empids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/16\/willow-flycatcher-one-of-the-aggravating-empids\/","title":{"rendered":"Willow Flycatcher – One Of The Aggravating Empids"},"content":{"rendered":"

A species deserving of more attention than it gets.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I photographed this Willow Flycatcher two days ago in a Wasatch Mountain valley. ‘He” wasn’t in a singing mood but he posed nicely for a few moments in a setting I like very much when I crop the photos vertically but not so much with horizontal compositions. The background color is sort of a homogenized mix of spring green and the ubiquitous tans and browns of dried vegetation so common around here and for this photo I think it’s just about perfect.<\/p>\n

Empidonax<\/em> flycatchers, ’empids’, often don’t get the attention they deserve. They tend to be somewhat drab little birds, some like this species are common and most tend to look very similar with their olive upperparts, pale throats and bellies and whitish wing-bars and eye-rings. Since they’re so similar physically birders must rely on voice, behavior, habitat and range to aid in identification. But their habitats and ranges often overlap and they have an uncanny knack for keeping their mouths shut just when it comes time to make an ID. Empids have been called “the toughest group of North American birds to identify in the field” and many amateur and even expert birders simply give up in frustration.<\/p>\n

So how did I ID this particular flycatcher? I’m a rank amateur when it comes to flycatcher ID but the ‘fitz-bew ‘ <\/em>call of the Willow Flycatcher is distinctive so I rely on it, on appropriate habitat and the fact that I know that Willow Flycatchers are common in the area where I photographed this bird.<\/p>\n

However, this flycatcher wasn’t calling so I’m just playing the odds and hoping I’m right.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A species deserving of more attention than it gets.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,3522],"tags":[5242,3524,311,3088],"class_list":["post-87458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-willow-flycatcher","tag-empidonax-flycatcher-identification","tag-empidonax-traillii","tag-utah-2","tag-willow-flycatcher"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/willow-flycatcher-1545-alternate-crop-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-mKC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}