NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS East Meets West: a Hybrid Eastern x Western Kingbird on Long Island

摘要

It was an excellent spring birding day on May 16~(th), 2014 in the old farm fields of Hallockville Museum Farm and the new Hallock State Park just beyond those fields (Riverhead, N.Y.). The walk I was leading for 30+ bird enthusiasts was beginning to wind down. Some people were already going ahead to their cars when I spied an interesting bird perched on an old dried mullein stalk in a fallow field. The colors on the bird were striking and it was hard to believe we could have missed it if it had been there earlier in the day when we passed this exact spot. It was the shape and size of an Eastern Kingbird, two of which were perched nearby, hawking insects from their own dried mullein stalks. Those birds were quite vocal and we had seen them earlier in the day in the same spot.