Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 11:15:22 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Jim Stasz Subject: Re: Empidonax Question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Folks! I will go out on a limb a bit with this. Least and Yellow-bellied often flick their tails; this is much less common in Willow/Alder/Acadian. Least often behaves like a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, with tail and wing flicking. Yellow-bellied often raises and lowers the tail, sort of like a Hermit Thrush, or does some side-swiping, like an Eastern Phoebe. When dealing with Empidonax species, movement like tail or wing flicking should also be suppemented with field marks: color of eyering, color of throat, shape of bill [always check for Dusky/Hammond's/"Western"], wing shape [rounded or pointed], primary extension, etc. If you have a good look at an Empidonax, you should be able to identify Acadian, Least, Yellow-bellied, and "Traill's" by sight. Good Birding! Jim Jim Stasz North Beach MD jlstasz@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================