[mou] Unknown Bird

[Steve Weston]

Hi John,

the activity that you witnessed was probably hawking, which is the name for flycatching where the bird flies up from a perch
to catch a flying insect.  Another possiblity is that it was some kind of display flight.  In either case I do not know of
any bird (excluding a couple of hunting hawks) that will hover like that for that long.

As to the identity of the bird, there is not a lot to go on.  A gray bird somewhere between the size of a robin and larger
than a hummingbird.  From color it could have been a Catbird.  By its hawking it could have been a Yellow-rumped Warbler,
although there is a lot more to the description that would stand out, or a Phoebe, which is actually brown.  Or lastly an
Eastern Kingbird, which has a gray back.  Of course if you live in the middle of prairie in SW Minnesota, it is one set of
birds completely different from living in a pine forest in NE Minnesota.

Steve Weston on Quigley Lake in Eagan
sweston2@comcast.net
----- Original Message -----
From: <jjportz@mmm.com>
To: <mou-net@cbs.umn.edu>
Cc: <jkportz@mninter.net>
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 9:52 PM
Subject: [mou] Unknown Bird


>
>
>
>
> I saw an unusual bird this week.  Could you help me identify the it?  It
> was gray in color.  Initially as it flew into my yard I thought it was a
> robin but it was smaller.  As it turned I saw it had a gray breast.  What
> was most unusual was the birds behavior.  It would fly, stop in mid-air
> like a hummingbird for about 5 seconds and then it would fly again.  It
> stayed a few feet off the ground landing on the cross member of a swing set
> and landing in the lower branches of a small tree.  It did this several
> times so I had time to ask to ask my wife and kids to come watch the bird.
> They initially thought the bird was a hummingbird but it was too large and
> was so plain in color that we concluded it was not a hummingbird.
>
> Thanks for any help you can provide.
>
>
> John J. Portz
>
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