Mason Regional Park, Irvine, southern California

By Andy Birch

The morning of January 6th, found me down at Mason Regional Park with Alex Lees and other birders looking for North America's third record of Nutting's Flycatcher. This Mexican vagrant was recorded a couple of years ago over-wintering in Arizona and prior to that, there is just one previous record from the 1950s.

Fortunately, the bird was showing very well upon our arrival, feeding low in the bushes and brush. It's a subtle species, very similar in plumage to Ash-throated Flycatcher. Birders discussed the finer points of its identification ranging from buff edging to the secondaries, pattern of the undertail, gape color and it's diagnostic call. I didn't hear it call but it did have an overall appearance that seemed subtly different from Ash-throated, which included a more rounded head shape and a shorter stubbier bill.

Having had our fill of the Flycatcher, we wandered a few hundred yards to enjoy a Harris's Sparrow amongst the White-crowned Sparrow flock, dwarfing its cousins. A short drive to a staked out Tropical Kingbird at first yielded nothing more than a Cassin's Kingbird posing as a Tropical. However, the brighter, bolder Tropical soon anounced its arrival with a rattling call that sent the Cassin's scurrying for cover.