On 18 December Lauren Harter and David Vander Pluym heard what they thought was an ABA Code-5 Nutting’s Flycatcher (Myiarchus nuttingi) in a riparian area of the Bill Williams River in Arizona but they could not find the bird. On the 19th the bird responded with aggression to recording of Nutting’s Flycatcher and it was photographed and some sound recordings were obtained by Lauren and David. For directions to a somewhat difficult viewing location see:
www.birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/AZNM.html#1324326646
Lauren reports the call that the flycatcher has been giving most often is a clear, rising "reeep", matched by a recording (33 seconds) on xeno-canto.org by Nick Athanas. Beware of two Ash-throated Flycatchers in the area.
There are only a few confirmed records of Nutting’s Flycatcher in the ABA Area. The species is mostly a resident from northwestern Mexico south to northwestern Costa Rica. The few ABA-area records are from winter, a specimen taken at Roosevelt Lake, Arizona, on 8 January 1952, one photographed with audio recordings from Patagonia Lake State Park, Arizona, from 14 December to 21 March 1998, and an audio recording of a bird from Irvine, California, 11 November 200 to 26 March 2001 (ABA Checklist, Seventh Edition, Pranty et al.).
A more permanent link to Lauren's post is
http://listserv.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1112c&L=birdwg05&T=0&P=11052
supplemented by directions info in a second post
http://listserv.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1112c&L=birdwg05&T=0&P=12619
Posted by: Mark Stevenson | December 22, 2011 at 09:59 PM