Hammond's Flycatcher in Copus Christi, 1/22/11

Last week Corpus Christi's dean of birding, Mel Cooksey, found a Hammond's Flycatcher at Rose Hill Cememtery in Corpus Christi. I finally got up there today and found the western empid without too much trouble. Texas bird #532 and my fourth Empidonax for the month. Hammond's Flycather is olive-gray without the contrasting white throat you see on Least. Due to the long primary extension the tail looks short.









Another characteristic of Hammond's Flycather is the short narrow bill.



Another good bird in the cemetery was this Plumbeous Vireo. I've seen many of them in the mountains of west Texas but it's pretty rare for Nueces County.



After doing well at Rose Hill, I headed over to Polywog Pond to look for Jon McIntyre's Rusty Blackbirds. It took a lot of searching but eventually I flushed the small flock of birds. They were hard to approach and all I managed was this week photo of a female.