mystery bird

[Weston Barker]

today, I observed a bird in my yard that has completely stumped me.

when I first noticed it, the bird was feeding on insects in a tall fir tree at 3:40 pm. at first I thought it was an Eastern Phoebe, but as I watched it longer it was obviously not. it was hopping/flying rather clumsily between the branches, sometimes hanging from them to pick insects off the end. the bird was slightly larger than a Phoebe, and had a brown back, rump, nape, crown, and cheeks, with clean white underparts and throat, and completely white outer tail feathers. it had a relatively large head, and looked very much like a type of flycatcher.

the white outer tail feathers are what really have me confused.

any ideas on the identification of this bird would be appreciated.

[John Morrison]

Eastern kingbird?

[Weston Barker]

it was definitely not an Eastern Kingbird. It had one or two completely white outer tail feathers, not a white band extending across the tips of all of the tail feathers. The overall shape of the kingbird is similar to what i saw, but it definitely had brown upperparts and central tail feathers, not the dark gray of a kingbird. I was only able to see it through a for a few seconds, from inside my living room. I went outside after it flew off to try and find it, but had no luck. I was also unable to obtain photographs, and heard no vocalizations.

My yard is not very big, with a lawn made of mostly grass, Common Plantain, and dandelion leaves, with about 8 large, spaced-out Red Maples and 1 large fir. I live in Topsham.

On Mon, Jul 8, 2019 at 7:56 PM John Morrison <john.m...@wwfus.org> wrote:

Eastern kingbird?

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Black-Billed Cuckoo? 

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