The Cordilleran Flycatcher family

All right, I did say that this would be the last post on my first trip to Happy Jack this year. However, this post won't be about my trip to Happy Jack but in fact about one specific bird that I found.

While I was on my trip to Happy Jack the "Pew Teet" call of the Cordilleran Flycatcher was a common sound from deep within the forest. Every time I would hear the call I would try to locate the bird and get some photos, but one time when I was close to camp I heard the usual Cordilleran call again, so I tried to locate the bird. Once I found it I saw him fly up, and when he flew up I heard the begging calls of some fledgeling.  I then stealthily walked over to where they were and found them! But before I give you a photo of the fledgelings here is a photo of Aaron the Cordilleran Flycatcher.

Yes, I was extremely close but hey it's an okay photo! Now here are Aaron's kids.

When I found the fledgelings I noticed my camera battery was very low,  after watching the birds for a while I headed back to the trailer and charged the battery for about and hour before going back out.  I ate breakfast with my family and then I went back out to look for the fledgelings. It was not hard finding them because they gave a very high pitched whistle and I could hear it from about 250 feet away. I then tracked down the whistle and found the fledgelings high up in a tree, but that did not stop me from getting to eye level with them. Just to let you know I like climbing trees quite a bit, and climbing a tree to get eye level with these birds was no problem at all!!!

Here is a photo of Aaron from up in the tree.

It was awesome getting to observe this species so easily, but even though the bird would come by every once in a while to feed his young, I was not able to get that awesome photo where the adult lands near the fledgling and all three are begging and he is about to feed them but, I did get this shot.

As you can see Aaron has a horse fly and horse fly's are evil and smart! The main reason I don't like horse flies goes back to a few years ago when we first started camping at Happy Jack. I was hiking with my mom and younger brother when I saw my first ever Many-lined Skink.  I ran over to it but before I could catch it, the scaly monster ran in a slithering like way into a hole. I was heart-broken, I had just missed catching my first ever skink!  As we continued hiking along the trail the horse flies would let us walk by them but once we passed them they would attack us from behind and fly onto the back of our necks or heads and bite us. I was just not in the mood for these evil little monsters and I pretty much exploded and ran back to camp.  Ever since then I have had a bad relationship with these insects. When I saw that Aaron had caught and fed a horse fly to his babies he quickly became my best bird friend, ha those horse fly's got what they deserve!
 I hope you enjoyed the photos and information, and yes, this will be the last of this weeks camping posts!