Wood Pewee from Ecuador (1 Viewer)

[Liebzi]

Puyo in January 2020. Both Western and Eastern Wood Pewee occour in the area, making it almost impossible to identify without hearing it. But I still feel these 3 individuals lean more towards Western. Pic 1 and 2 are same individual. Dark with white median stripe, lower mandible seem pretty dark with just a tiny spot closest to throat. Pic 3 different individual but looks the same with black lower mandible. Pic 4 is the 3. individual - upper wingbar faint, but here seems to be pale deepest at the lower mandible.

Added as well a photo of an Euophonia from same location. Have to be Orange-bellied, but crown just seem to fit White-vented slightly more. I have several photos of Orange-bellied from the area, and they seems to have a crown almost reaching back of crown/head.

 

[njlarsen]

Shouldn't the white spot on the tail underside be specific for Orange Bellied E? And head possibly a not completely moulted younger male or some weird attempt at raising the crown like a crest?
Niels

 

[THE_FERN]

Western from what we can see of the undertail coverts (which are dusky). You'd help all concerned by adjusting exposure before posting. The dark ones are too dark to see anything much

 

[THE_FERN]

(With respect to the euphonia, I don't think we can see exactly how far back the yellow crown goes because of the angle. I don't see anything especially strange here)

 

[Liebzi]

Western from what we can see of the undertail coverts (which are dusky). You'd help all concerned by adjusting exposure before posting. The dark ones are too dark to see anything much

I just found this pdf giving some great fieldmarks on how to separate them. Where have you read about the undertail cover one? Wingbars on the last one seems to fit eastern more.

 

[THE_FERN]

I just found this pdf giving some great fieldmarks on how to separate them. Where have you read about the undertail cover one? Wingbars on the last one seems to fit eastern more.

Perhaps the last is better for eastern but the view isn't great. In the last bird of your series the utcs appear unmarked white, and perhaps the lower bill is pale (last looked at this on a phone: now looking on a proper screen).

wrt undertail coverts, several different guides. It's also actually illustrated both in the opening gouache and the photos in the ref you link [compare the utcs of the first 2 birds there].

 

[THE_FERN]

I just found this pdf giving some great fieldmarks on how to separate them. Where have you read about the undertail cover one? Wingbars on the last one seems to fit eastern more.

Just scan-read the ref you linked. They mention the UTCs there. They suggest not reliable, with no difference between the 2 species. This is ironic because +/- all those labelled eastern in the paper have clean UTCs, and all those with dusky are western.

 

[Liebzi]

Just scan-read the ref you linked. They mention the UTCs there. They suggest not reliable, with no difference between the 2 species. This is ironic because +/- all those labelled eastern in the paper have clean UTCs, and all those with dusky are western.

This is a bit odd. I wonder if they have seen on breeding grounds Western with pure white UTC's, and same goes with eastern the other way around. Or maybe even banded a few, making this fieldmark not reliable. I feel like if the bird shows black lower mandible, same coloured wingbars, dusky smushy grey UTC's and straight posture, it should be possible to idenitfy it as Western. But I only have experince with this species from these months in Ecuador, so not much to base it on.

 

[THE_FERN]

This is a bit odd. I wonder if they have seen on breeding grounds Western with pure white UTC's, and same goes with eastern the other way around. Or maybe even banded a few, making this fieldmark not reliable. I feel like if the bird shows black lower mandible, same coloured wingbars, dusky smushy grey UTC's and straight posture, it should be possible to idenitfy it as Western. But I only have experince with this species from these months in Ecuador, so not much to base it on.

They looked at museum specimens. My view is that if you get a suite of characters which all point in the same direction then it's probably a safe id.