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April 25

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Places to Visit and Explore Nature in Stanley Park Ecosystem Guides: Garden Stanley Park Visitor Map: with Park Features, Trails, and Destinations Lost Lagoon SW

Hammond's Flycatcher This photograph was taken in 2003 in the woodland - garden boundary or ecotone to the south of Lost Lagoon. The blooms of flowering shrubs and trees, birds, and insect life attracted me to this area. My attention was soon captured by the shape of an unfamiliar bird perched on an outer branch of a flowering cherry tree. The bird's upright posture and large, peaked, head were distinctive as was its behaviour. It would fly out from its perch to capture or hawk insects in flight; then return to the same branch. I was pretty sure I was looking at one of the flycatchers. But who? Luckily for me two helpful and experienced birders - Al Grass and Kathleen Finnegan had already spotted and identified this handsome bird as a Hammond's flycatcher. After getting home I consulted my bird books only to find that it looks like most of its fellow flycatchers. I should have paid more attention to its call, described in the National Geographic Field Guide to Birds as a " sharp peek" .       Field Guide Entry: Hammond's Flycatcher

Stanley Park Explorer http://www.stanleyparkexplorer.ca Produced by Peter Woods naturalist@stanleyparkexplorer.ca           Revised: May 20, 2011