Reub's journey

08 July 2011

King birds?

Ed and Reub and I were out walking in a rolling, brushy open place here in western Oregon when I was mesmerized by a pair of hovering birds. They were like smallish hawks hovering high above the hillside, then dropping straight down to get something in the grass. Flycatchers flying that high? King birds, slightly out of their usual countryside? They were silhouetted against the sky, so it was difficult to see markings, but I thought there might be a yellow cast on the belly of one. A king bird? Just not sure because I've never witnessed this hawking behavior before in anything but a hawk.

5 comments:

  1. well according to the Cornell Lab site, this is what they say under the Western Kingbird's behavior:

    Captures most prey by aerial hawking from an elevated perch. Also grabs insects on ground and off vegetation.

    so i think you're right on the kingbird i.d. :)

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  2. Well, the bird wasn't "hawking from an elevated perch" unless by "perch," the author meant something other than a stationary object.

    I don't know my birds well enough to guess intelligently, but I'm going to guess hawk anyway.

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  3. In Malaysia, they use the word Kampung aka village.

    The Moa was so big that it fed the whole Kampung during a feast. Apparently, when the Maoris arrived in NZ, it was still here.

    Imagine the Moa being your kingbird.

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  4. I signed up on birdforum.net and the consensus from bird watchers there is that this is a western blue bird.

    It was backlit and hard to see, but why didn't I notice that it was blue?! What a dummy.

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  5. I do not think is was a fly catcher. Western blue bird? Our do not behave that way. Very interesting.

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