Who am I?

Arthur P. Johnson, , , ,
Gray Catbird With Blue Plumage

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

Buy prints of #2, below

Buy prints of #3, below

Mysterious Max, #2 of 3
#2 in a collection of 3 photographs. I have a healthy appetite for suet dough, but so do many other birds. I’m bigger than a Wren and smaller than other Catbirds previously photographed by Arthur.
Mysterious Max, #3 of 3 Photographs.
#3 in a collection of 3 photographs. My rear end is a beautiful rusty color, exactly like a Catbird’s, but the rest of my coloring doesn’t match any Catbird my photographer has shot!

Published by Arthur P. Johnson

Arthur P. Johnson is an award-winning creative professional with 30+ years of experience in advertising, product development, screen writing, and television and web production. He has loved photography all his adult life and now he's doing it all the time. It's exciting, exhausting and scary, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

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