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Gray flycatcher        Image © Mark A. Chappell

Gray flycatchers are one of the 6 or 7 very confusing Empidonax flycatchers, notorious among North American birders for their challenges in identification (several other 'Empi's' are the willow, alder, least, dusky, Hammond's, and Pacific slope flycatchers).   Most are best identified by song and habitat -- but they don't often sing outside of the breeding season.   Gray flycatchers are among the dullest of this rather drab family, colored mainly in gray tones.   They summer and breed mainly in dry pine or juniper woodlands in western North America.   These birds were wintering at Lake Skinner and nearby Lake Perris, in southern California. 

  • Canon 1D4 or 7D2; 800 mm IS lens plus 1.4X converter, electronic flash (2012, 2013, 2014, 2017)