Utah bird (1 Viewer)

[JeffMoh]

Can anyone help with this bird seen today at 8,000 ft. in central Utah?

 

[AveryBartels]

Swainson's Thrush, note the pale spectacles.

 

[KC Foggin]

Think I'm going with Swainson's Thrush as well.

 

[Butty]

May be an odd posture, but nothing much about it says thrush. Very pronounced spec, with big dark gap in the eye-ring at 8 o'clock, thick whitish greater-covert wing-bar, and (only partly obscured) unspotted chest. The bill looks odd (for a thrush or for anything) because it's actually wide open with the lower mandible almost totally hidden by the branch. Surely plumbeous vireo?

 

[birdmeister]

I'm on board with Plumbeous Vireo, too. I guess the photo is rather dark overall, but most of the points Butty mentioned aren't too affected by that.

 

[THE_FERN]

Yes I agree it's the vireo and that it looks odd mostly because we can only see the upper mandible. I can see clearly that this bird is almost uniformly grey with strong white lores/eye ring and wing stripe. I'm not aware of a thrush like that.

 

[nartreb]

Though the face pattern is somewhat similar to a Swainson's, this bird's face pattern is too white, too contrasting, too sharply delineated. Overall color is too grey also, even making allowances for difficult photographic conditions. There seems to be a bit of white wingbar visible too - no thrush has that. Finally, no spots at all on the lower parts - even a Veery shows more spotting than this.

Plumbeous vireo is not a bird I'm familiar with, but it sure looks like a match.