Juvenile Eastern Phoebe

There is a great group on flickr that is cataloging people's bird photos and there are many people there who are excellent birders and very generous with helping i.d.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/birdguide/

Hooray for experience.

I actually know one. He's in his 80's and he'll go out to do the annual butterfly survey with a pair of binoculars and see 28 species while I'll be standing next to him and see perhaps 6.

hahaha do you suppose there is an expert at little brown butterfly i.d.?

Alder is a very good possibility. I took a shot of a bird that I definitely know is a Willow simply because it called constantly the entire time I watched it, but it doesn't quite match all the vague field marks of a Willow: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/689.... But, hey, they're easier to I.D. than little brown butterflies!

Mick and Scott what do you think of an Alder Flycatcher. More likely found where we live and duller wing bars. They were thought to be the same as the Willow flycatcher until recently.
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Alder...

I haven't heard either call around our house though.

Me too and this little fellow is why! I'll struggle over a dolphin for hours but trying to figure out if it is a common or atlantic white sided but just give up over these guys. Liked its perkiness though.

I'm definitely a "casual" birder and I think flycatchers and fall warblers would drive me to despair if I took it seriously. Oh well, Roger Tory Peterson himself probably has trouble with them too!

hahaha Scott that is what I was doing... it could be this or that but nothing seemed right. the wing bars squelched a lot of possibilities.

It's a flycatcher. It looks a lot like a Wood Pewee but they evidently have partly light colored bills. It could be a Phoebe, but it looks too brown and has fairly distinct wing bars. It might be an Alder/Willow Flycatcher, but I don't see an eye ring. My guess is a Phoebe, although it really doesn't look dark enough. Did it wag its tail a lot? Link to flycatchers: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/brows.... Nice link for Phoebe: http://www.wbu.com/chipperwoods/photos/e...