Los Angeles County 

Two Yellow-bellied/"Western" Flycatchers

John Sterling

First one is at Apollo Park, Lancaster Los Angeles County September 19, 2007

This is the bird that I found that was posted as a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher but was presumably the same bird that was seen the following day and thought to be unidentifiable to species.  First of all, this bird is not a Pacific-slope Flycatcher due to the loud "PEEK" call that was sharper and as loud as the "PIP" call of Hammond's Flycatcher.  Both Jeff Seay and I heard that call several times.  This call reminded me of the winter territorial call of Yellow-bellied Flycatcher that I had heard many times in Chiapas, Mexico in the early 1990s when I was working there for two winters.  But this call is not similar to the call notes posted on the species' BNA account.  It could be similar to Cordilleran but that call note is not described anywhere that I know of. 

This bird was fairly green with yellowish-white wingbars, eyering and edges on the secondaries in the sunlight, but these photographs don't show this well.  The wingbars looked bright yellowish-white on black wings in the sun, but in the shade showed a tinge of buff as well.  The eyering shape changed noticeably due to posture/feather positioning.  At times it looked perfectly round, at other times it had more of a build-up in the rear of the eyering, and at other times it looked "broken" at the top of the eye.  The bird was very actively foraging and had it crest raised much of the time.  At times the head was round in shape, but only one of these photos really show that posture.  The color of the underparts also changed in appearance due to lighting.  In the sun, the underparts were either very pale, or the yellow was highlighted to look very bright.  So...either pale or bright yellow was highlighted to catch our eyes according to position of the bird to the sun.  In the shade, the olive-green streaking across the chest was broken by a yellow vertical line that connected to the yellow throat.  This dark streaking and paler line looked similar to the "vested" look of a pewee.  If this bird is not a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher but a Cordilleran Flycatcher, then it is the closest one to a Yellow-bellied that I have seen in California, at least until I saw a second bird a week later which I discuss below these photos.

Bird Number Two was in the San Gabriel Mountains on the southern ridge above San Gabriel River, Los Angeles County September 27, 2007

I first saw this bird for about 5 seconds in the sunlight and I was struck by how bright it was.  It then flew to a nearby shrub where I was able to obtain three photographs.  The back was even greener and the wingbars brighter yellow than the Apollo Park bird.  Also, the eyering was very narrow and was also yellowish.  It had the olive green streaking across its breast.  The throat was yellow connected to a yellow line down the center of its breast similar to the Apollo Park bird.  The wings look blacker in these photographs than the Apollo Park bird, but I am not sure if this is an artifact of the poor lighting.  I was only able to photograph this bird in the shade in the middle of dense vegetation.  I feel lucky to get these photos as the bird quickly disappeared.  Although I believe that this bird could be a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, I did not hear it vocalize, unfortunately.