Typically, my first photos of a lifer don’t warrant framing. Either I see an unfamiliar bird in flight and scramble to grab any image I can, or I’m viewing a bird I don’t recognize through thick foliage, or I’m at full zoom, and still the bird looks small.
At least no thick foliage stood in the way of my first photos of an Ash-throated Flycatcher. Dog and I were headed home after another quiet hike through this warm, arid landscape when something good-sized flapped along just below us on a slope—a bird that looked a lot like a Great Crested Flycatcher (a species I saw plenty of back in Maine).
Lucky for me, the best of several distant shot revealed field marks enough to ID my latest Utah lifer. Maybe, come spring next, I’ll hear its burry song.
“Do they have great-cresteds here?” I muttered to Captain Jack as I watched the bird settle onto the branch of a scrub oak and took aim. It stayed on the branch just a few seconds before heading away.
Grandeur Peak Area List
Beginning at 8:47 a.m., I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
1. Black-capped Chickadee*
2. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay**
3. Lazuli Bunting
4. Black-chinned Hummingbird
5. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
6. House Finch*
7. Spotted Towhee
8. Broad-tailed Hummingbird
9. Mourning Dove*
10. Ash-throated Flycatcher
Elsewhere
11. Black-billed Magpie
12. Eurasian Collared Dove
13. Rock Pigeon
Mammals
Rock Squirrel
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere
Tags: ash-throated flycatcher, blac-billedmagpie, black-capped chickadee, black-chinned hummingbird, blue-gray gnatcatcher, broad-tailed hummingbird, Eurasian collared dove, house finch, lazuli bunting, mourning dove, rock pigeon, rock squirrel, spotted towhee, Woodhouse’s scrub jay
