Wednesday 8 October 2008 - 'TRAILL'S FLYCATCHER' - A New 'Species' for Britain

'TRAILL'S FLYCATCHER' - New to Britain

What a day to leave my pager at home!  Whilst supping a pint of Guinness in Deacon Brodie's hostelry in Edinburgh this afternoon (another HSBC 'slap on the back' event), my fellow birding bredren inundated me with texts regarding a mysterious Empidonax flycatcher that had turned up in Cornwall.  Was it part of some sick hoax?  Unfortunately 'hell no' it wasn't!  I continued to drown my sorrows with more of the 'black stuff' and a trip to a whiskey distillery.

* * * 

The trouble with these little American buggers is that they are a nightmare to indentify.  The bird in question was soon narrowed down though as being either an ALDER FLYCATCHER or a WILLOW FLYCATCHER.  Either way it's a new species for Britain so I need to see it as soon as possible.  Apparently though these two species are pretty much impossible to separate in the field other than by listening carefully to their songs or calls and are still pretty tricky to tell apart whilst 'in the hand'.  The summer ranges of the two species are different too.  The Alder Flycatcher can be found primarily in Canada and Alaska whilst the Willow Flycatcher is usually found in the lower States.  Both species migrate to South America for the winter.  Before these species were split in the 1970's they shared the name of TRAILL'S FLYCATCHER so named after Dr Thomas Stewart Traill by John James Audubon upon his arrival in Liverpool in July 1826.  It was a gesture of thanks from Audubon after the doctor helped him to find a publisher for his monumental 'Birds of America' books.  I'm sure there will be a few keen listers out there hoping that it will be 're-lumped'.  It will certainly be interesting to see how the BOU deal with this record, however we will probably all be dead by the time a decision is actually made.  With that in mind maybe it's a blessing that I won't be able to get down to my beloved Kernow until Saturday at the earliest, at which point the bird will probably be gone.

STOP PRESS:  It's been trapped and processed this afternoon (09/10/08) and identified as a 1st winter male ALDER FLYCATCHER.