As we put a stake in the heart of May and bid it adieu, another new bird showed up out of nowhere today.
Yellow birds stand out – we don’t get many of them. Which is why I was so surprised to see this one just a couple of days after the yellow-headed blackbird showed up here.
My first thought was that it might be one of the yellow-rumped warblers that we have all over, which don’t have what *I* would consider to be exceedingly yellow rumps, but maybe this was a different sex or subspecies than I normally see. But the Cornell Lab app says differently.
The Merlin app at Cornell Labs identifies this bird as a “Pacific-slope flycatcher.” It also notes that they’re almost identical and difficult to distinguish from the Cordilleran flycatcher – but the Pacific-slope flycatcher’s range includes Southern California and the coast, while the Cordilleran flycatcher stays in the mountains of Arizona and down into Mexico.
Which makes me wonder. I haven’t been obsessed with seeing and IDing different birds – but on the other hand I have been watching and keeping my eyes open and living within a mile or two of here for thirty years. So is there some improvement in my observations that has multiple new species being seen here in just the last few months? Or are we actually getting more variety and newer-ish species of birds coming into this area?
Beats me!
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 
You may have some things that have had to move from their normal habitats because of the fires. And they may have pushed others out of their habitats towards yours. Or you may just be more observant now you realise there are different things around 🙂
And with the experience, you may now be having a second look at things because you discover they aren’t what you first took them for.
Me – I have a pair of siskins coming to the feeder. They shouldn’t be here in spring/summer, they breed in the north of England and Scotland, in pine forests. But they seem quite happy here. Probably not nesting, but then again…
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I hadn’t thought of it in terms of the fires but that definitely could be it. Some, like this flycatcher, seem to normally live in more rural and wooded areas, but when those burn (and they are, every year) they’ve got to move somewhere.
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