Ash-throated vs. Great-crested Flycatcher?

[Gord]

Russ Cannings and Don Cecile have brought forth a strong suggestion that the Ash-throated Flycatcher reported from Island 22 on Tuesday is possibly a Great Crested Flycatcher which would be a considerably rarer bird as it is pretty dedicated to living in the eastern half of the country while the Ash-throated occurs to the south of us and is more prone to going further north than it should (as opposed to flying over the Rockies).

Now not to try and unduly suggest I was thinking the same thing at one point, but as I was looking at my photos on the night of the discovery a few things prompted a flurry of texts back and forth between Chris and myself.

I thought the bird felt a bit hefty, but then I questioned how much merit that has given I have not seen many of this genus of bird.

The bill looked a bit bigger and longer than I would expect and the pale colouring at the base certainly did not work for my initial opinions of what an Ash-throated should have. I did some research and did find some suggestion that younger Ash-throated Flycatchers may have some pale at the base. So I put a mental check mark beside Ash-throated again.

The tail has rufous colouring to the tip; a trait Great Crested has but allegedly juvenile Ash-throateds do as well. With support from the previous check mark I put beside Ash-throated on the bill aspect, I did another check mark for the tail aspect for Ash-throated.

The colouring on my unedited photos showed a fairly strongly yellow-bellied bird (actually the first aspect that stuck out to me maybe not so much in the field but on the photos). But, the sun was low in the sky at the time and my camera seems to accentuate yellow tones in these situations (see my shots of the Phillidelphia Vireo from Island 22 a few years back taken almost at the same time of day etc. The bird was yellow no question but my camera made sure no one missed that fact). So, after reducing the yellow wash to what I thought seemed to be a more natural display of colour, I thought the yellow was not so 'bad' and considering my other thoughts, went with Ash-throated. Chris came up with similar thoughts at the end.

Anyway, here is the unedited photos.






And after a little work in photoshop I came up with these which may have caused a few days delay on others going out to see a very good bird for BC (if it does end up being a Great Crested)






Comments and thoughts welcome. I will share the opinions others have who are not members of the site as they come (with their permission).

[oldfulica]

The plot thickens. I am attaching a shot of an Ash-throated taken in Arizona in March with a similar pose for comparison.
Some of the points you and Don mentioned Gord;
This bird has;
Black base to bill
lighter yellow wash
Looks like a dark tip to tail (not rufous to tip)
Bill appears to be smaller than your bird ( this is subjective)

I lean towards Great-crested also. Wow!
Chris, Ryan Johnson and I searched for the bird next morning and we couldn't relocate it.

[kevinhhood]

Gord:

Sibley describes the Great Crested as having a dark gray face and breast and many (not all) of the pictures online claiming to be GC seem to have a more noticeably gray throat and face. In your case, it does not look very 'dark gray' though I'm guessing that the angle of the sun is probably making that tricky to evaluate.

One other random thought - I've noticed that long-distance migratory birds that end up way off course tend to be juveniles. I'm not sure that this helps much in this case though.

[Chris]

I don't have much to add what Gord has said except for the behaviour of the bird. When I saw it,it was higher up in the canopy and the two trees it was in were the bigger ones around. It seemed to move slow, kind of like a vireo. Gord, saw it longer than I did so maybe he saw something different. I believe Great crested tend to be higher up whereas Ash throated feed farther down. Since it was late October maybe it changed its feeding habits?

[kevinhhood]

One other thought occurred to me.

If it is a Great-Crested with a screwed up migratory sense it may still be moving and we should be looking for more sightings of it to the west.

Out of curiosity, I checked eBird and there are 4 west coast sightings of the GC FC this year with the 3 most recent seen between Oct 10 and Oct 16 right on the coast:

• Oct 10, Farallon Island near San Francisco (checklist with picture)
• Oct 11, Alaska (checklist - no picture)
• Oct 12-16, San Diego area (checklist with picture)
• Sept 29, San Diego area (checklist with picture)

If you look at the last 10 years, there are more western sightings, almost always right on the coast and the ones that I looked at seem to fall into the late September or early October (around the 10th) range.  None of the records show the GC being seen in late October.  And there has never been one seen (and listed on eBird) in the lower mainland area of BC west of the Columbia, or in Washington State or in Oregon State or in California north of the Bay area.

Unfortunately, the misdirected birds probably headed out over the Pacific thinking they were crossing the Caribbean as I did not see any records suggesting overwintering birds.

Of course in our changing climactic times, who knows what to expect.

[Randy]

On further inspection, I agree that it's pretty suspicious for a great-crested. Cool bird!

[Gord]

Agreed, Randy!

Chris, as we've already discussed, the feeding habits and habitat fits quite well. Dave Beeke who has seen a few in trips back East says it's a fit as well.

Thanks to Russ and Don for pointing this out.

[Chris]

An Ash-throated Flycatcher was seen in the province elsewhere on the first of November. You can notice the difference between the Great-crested and the Ash throated. Also, this one seems to be on barbed wire so much difference behaviour (lower down) than the Great Crested.

Here is a link. bcbirdalert.blogspot.ca/