trip_bondi's Identifications

Wading quite slowly upstream in Buffalo Creek with my camera, I heard the distinctive croaking of a Great Blue Heron up ahead. About 15 minutes later, I discovered this strange object, bigger than a hen's egg, on a rock at the edge of the stream, approximately where I would judge the Heron to have been when I heard it. I have never seen one of these before, but it must be the regurgitated indigestible parts of Crayfish from a bird that has been eating them. This "pellet" is very large, about 8 cm. long, and very freshly regurgitated indeed - it was a bright warm day and the rock shows a fresh patch of moisture under the Crayfish parts. To me, all this strongly points to the Great Blue Heron as the source of this interesting evidence of its diet. I photographed it and left it without dissection, so I've no idea whether it contains several or only one prey species. This section of Buffalo Creek has Crayfish everywhere one tries to step. They look like Allegheny Crayfish to me, in shape, proportions, and colour. Apparently, digestive acids turn their shells red as though they have been cooked.

I was convinced at the time that this was a Pewee rather than a Phoebe, because I would swear that I saw and heard this individual sing its plaintive "Pee-a-wee" call. Visually, these views are not persuasive to my eye though - those wing bars are really weak, and the Cicada conceals the (yellowish?) lower mandible.

What's more, I photographed an Eastern Phoebe less than a minute later, that I also witnessed making its buzzy "Phee-bee, phee-bay" call! I thought it extraordinary that they would be in the same woods at the same time, singing in succession in the same tree even. Is that possible, or at all likely?

I have heard both species sing in our farmyard at home, but not I think on the same day, just sometimes one, sometimes the other.

In any case, I certainly remember distinctly hearing both an Eastern Wood-Pewee and an Eastern Phoebe sing from virtually the same tree here at this covered bridge on Buffalo Creek, hardly a minute apart! If so, did I capture both species with the camera?

See:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/133049547
for the Eastern Phoebe observation here.

I hear these tiny masked songsters much more often than I see them, even with their bright colours. These are the little guys that sing, "Witchity-witchity-witchity-witch" in damp thickets. This one was sort of out in the open for a change, in an overgrown clearing along Buffalo Creek. It's always a real treat to get a look at such beautiful elusive Warblers.

I watched this Flycatcher behaving like a Flycatcher - perching, hovering, landing on the ground, perching - about 10-15 meters (30-50 feet) away, for a full three minutes, taking a lot of photographs and even catching its voice with my audio microphone once. I had been hearing interesting Warblers for an hour or so, and the occasional call note of an Acadian Flycatcher I believe, corroborated by the Merlin Bird ID programme from Cornell University.

The attached audio recording isn't long, a single call note (right after the Towhee, at the seven second mark), but I believe it is the individual in the photographs. I heard its voice more than that, but was busy taking photographs. Its voice matched recordings I have on my phone of Acadian Flycatchers, in pitch and quality. Merlin agreed.

The location and habitat is important to this identification as well. This bird was found in an extensive damp deciduous woodland just above the floodplain in the narrow valley of Buffalo Creek in Southwestern Pennsylvania, in what can be characterized as Appalachian Plateau Mixed Mesophytic Forest, at an altitude of about 289 meters (948 feet).

This is fine habitat for a number of birds that I have yet to observe, so I plan to spend more time here.