Yesterday evening (8/23) while at Sandy Hill Camp near North East on a
retreat with my FLint Hill School seniors, a Western Kingbird perched
for several seconds in beautiful light on the top of an oak overlooking
the camp's fields and cabins, near a cliff along the Elk River, and then
flew off towards the south.
Field marks: yellow underside from bottom of chest to undertail coverts
(quite bright yellow in this light), light gray head, back and chest
with contrasting darker gray eye-line; darker gray wings, un-notched
black tail (could not see the white outer tail feathers, nor did I see a
pale tail band that a Cassin's would have, but the bird was fairly
distant and the tail was not spread) , and black bill (bill close to the
size of an Eastern Kingbird's, not as large as a tropical kingbird's).
The bird was about 50-75 meters away, seen with Zeiss 10X binoculars in
good light.
I did not see the bird again this morning though I looked often between
6:30 and noon.
All the best
Fred

Fred Atwood
Biology/Ornithology teacher
Flint Hill School
3320 Jermantown Rd
Oakton, VA 22124
http://www.agpix.com/fredatwood
http://www.flinthill.org
703-242-1675