ID help needed

["Clay Johnson" <cjohnson at easilink dot com>]

This has been an interesting bird year here in scenic Jensen, Utah.we've
had more than our share of uncommon birds show up and/or nest this year.
Most of the species we've hosted favor our elderberries .at least, after
they have eaten the apricots, plums, tomatoes and peppers!

 

The attached photos (sorry for the quality) are of one, or possibly two
birds in our elderberries last evening.  I have a nagging sense that I
know this bird from somewhere. But I just can't make the ID.

 

Some additional information gleaned from watching the bird/s through
binoculars: The bird is bigger than a house finch and smaller than a
robin (elderberry leaves in the photos vary from 4-6" in length).  Color
rendition in the photos is pretty true, but my impression through the
binoculars was that the underside was clearly yellow rather than gray,
clear to the vent, and the underside of the tail was grayish brown.
Head/back were greenish to greenish-gray, wings brown with no sign of
wing bars.  The eye was dark (brown?) and there appeared to be a very
slight, possibly broken, eye ring. The heavy, slightly drooping bill was
bicolor, yellowish lower mandible with all or mostly dark upper
mandible.  The head appeared to be quite flat, so the overall impression
of the head and bill was sort of grackle-like (except for the colors).

 

I got fairly good views through the binoculars, and didn't note any
stripes, speckles, color patches, lore stripes, breast banding, white
feather flashes, or anything else that would help.  Overall colors
suggested some warbler, but that bill and head shape sure didn't.  About
the closest I could come to my overall impression of the bird in Sibley
was the Gray-crowned yellowthroat, if you leave off the loral stripe,
change the head shape a bit, grow the bill at little, add a greenish
cast, and then put that bird way, way out of its range.

 

 

We've attached some poor images (distance, light, through the window,
hand-held telephoto..all the best techniques) of the bird/s in various
poses.

 

Clay and Cliftia Johnson

Jensen, Utah

   


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