O Say Can You See - Say's Phoebe

We are sitting in our kitchen having just gotten off the phone talking with our son and daughter-in-law - there is thunder in the distance with a dark sky - a slight drizzle covered the patio a little while ago - the summer monsoon season should arrive within a couple of weeks - it's a typical Front Range Saturday afternoon in July along the west edge of the Great Plains.

Say's Phoebe

Last week before taking off for a week of meetings in Nevada, Jan and I were sitting out on our patio, and I got my first picture of a bird I hadn't seen before. I shot a good number of photographs while it was perched on our next-door neighbors' house. I could see it was a bug eater by its narrow beak - like robins - but couldn't figure our what it was with my Merlin bird identification application from the Cornell Ornithology Laboratory, the only thing closely resembling it was an Orchard Oriole, but I knew it wasn't that. I sent a picture to a now retired cereal extension specialist at Kansas State University who I knew was a birder (he was really bummed out a year ago when the drought caused the wheat harvest to be moved up and that cut into his vacation time when the migratory birds make their trek from South America up through the Plains States to Canada), so sent him a shot asking for his opinion. In the meantime, I pulled out my National Geographic Guide to North American Birds, and settled on it being a Say's Phoebe. About twenty minutes later, my KSU friend replied - he thought is was one also.

I got back from Nevada yesterday evening, and today did a little poking around on the Web looking for links between a Say's Phoebe and the Great Plains. I came across a nice wildlife site posted by Michael Forsberg Conservation Photography titled, Great Plains: America's Lingering Wildlife Exhibition. There is a plein aire shot of a Say's Phoebe hovering and framed by an abandoned window frame. The Cornell Ornithology lab posts a nice background page on the Say's on their Website. If you want a little more technical information, go to the on-line journal posting here.