By Sally Siko

After seeing several reports on the NC Rare Bird Alert for a Pacific-slope Flycatcher being seen within an hours drive of my home, I decided to go see if I could spot it.
As a bonus my daughter came along for the ride which was pretty awesome!

We arrived at the Buckhorn Reservoir in Wilson, NC yesterday around 4 PM.
Unfortunately the pinned map locations provided by the other eBirders weren’t accurate so finding this little bird proved to be a challenge!

The first location I tried (near the mudflats) was a no go.
The second spot (a marina parking lot) was a dud and I quickly realized that the bird I was looking for wasn’t going to turn up where the pin locations had said it would be.
I scanned the tree line around the lot and played a couple calls but had no luck.
At this point the sun was getting low in the sky and I decided that I probably wasn’t going to find the bird so I might as well enjoy the sunset sparkling over the water.

Walking down onto one of the long docks, I looked to the left shoreline and noticed that there was a large area of exposed mud which look like it might be drive-able.
So acting on a hunch, my daughter, and I got back into the car and drove out over the levee and onto the mud flats.
At this point, the only clue I had to the birds whereabouts were some eBird comment notes about the Flycatcher being near a red flag.
And lo and behold, flapping in the breeze attached to a low branch was a marking flag tied to a low branch on the muddy beach.
Then….something small and yellow colored fluttered out of the corner of my eye into a bush. I quickly searched for the bird in Merlin and played the single note call of a Pacific-slope Flycatcher.
To my amazement, out popped the Flycatcher who flew immediately up onto a nearby low hanging branch!
Success!!!

Well, I think it was successful.
My sighting still hasn’t been officially confirmed in eBird as the Pacific-slope and Cordilleran flycatchers are pretty difficult to tell apart from one another.
Even with photo verification the conformation might take a few days.
I’m calling this a win though because the bird responded so quickly to the single note call (a Cordilleran typically uses two note calls).
I’ll update this post if I’m proven wrong.
Either way, this was a fun bird to find.

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my mighty 50MP monster, the @canonusa #5Ds

Google Maps pin drop to the exact location to this bird shown below…