HELP! I’m a mystery bird.
I was photographed on August 27, 2018, in Eastern Pennsylvania, Central States, USA and I wasn’t in any book that my photographer can find.
He named me Mysterious Max for purposes of cataloging.
I don’t have wingbars, nor eye bars nor any other helpful field marks—except the chestnut cap and blue belly you see here, plus a beautiful rusty rump that may mark me as a male, and makes my photographer think I’m a mature bird.
I think I might be a flycatcher—I love suet!—but my beak is the only clue that offers evidence of these things right now. And who really knows? I don’t even match up with any Confusing Autumn Warblers!
Give up?
ANSWER: There’s a wonderful Free App for the iPad called MERLIN. It has a module that lets you feed your photo directly into Merlin and let the app identify your bird. I did this and Mysterious Max turns out to be:
(Drumroll)…
A Gray Catbird!
This variant of the species has slate-blue plumage rather than the straight gray that I’ve previously posted on ArthurPix™.
Live and learn.
Buy prints of photograph #1, featured above

