Mystery Bird

[vle1170]

I am trying to get a better and clearer picture of this guy/girl, but man is he fast. So sometimes its hard. But, I have looked in both of my bird books through every single page, I have checked online on many different sites trying to figure out what he is. He is the only one that I havent been able to identify that visits my feeder.

The closest type birds I have found he resembles are gnatcatchers, phoebes and flycatchers. Those birds have the closest type beaks that I have found. his is long slender and completely straight as you can see. I even did a step by step identifying thing on a site and still nothing, so i was hoping somebody might be able to help me shed some light on what this guy is...

I am posting the original picture then another one of the bird closer up in hopes of a better view....

This is the original


This is cropped so the bird is closer up a touch...


Anybody have any ideas??? Oh yeah I forgot to mention he likes to hang upside down from the shepherd's hook on the side there as well, he does that a LOT. I havent noticed any of the other birds doing it, except for the chickadee once in a while.

[Falsk]

I'd recognize that bill anywhere-- it's a nuthatch! A brown-headed nuthatch to be precise. I love how they climb down trees head-first. It's very... nuthatch-y of them. Very cool. We only have white-breasted here in Joisey.

2322314381_4be527f598.jpg

[vle1170]

I had considered that nuthatch when looking in my books but he doesnt have any brown on him so I had passed that one up.... but I just read on a website the immature ones are a blue gray and that is what this guy is....

So thank you soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much you have no idea how much this has bugged me trying to figure this little guy out. LOL I have searched so much that the pages in these books were all starting to look the same anymore hehee I appreciates it so much, I knew I could count on the site here to help me out :)

[Falsk]

No worries. I've been working at WBU for six years now. It's just kind of... second nature?

[vle1170]

There is one bird I have that I actually wish would go away LOL its a baby mockingbird...he NEVER shuts up. He is always screaming at momma FEED ME FEED ME. And she keeps him with in a one house radius of mine, as he hatched in my back yard. There were 2 babies, but one has vanished, and I think it was the one with just one eye, wish I knew what happened to him.
At around 5-5:15pm I go outside and there will be like a scene from that movie The Birds out there, at least 20-30 birds sitting out there waiting to come chow down. I need to keep a journal or something on all my visitors...
I keep a blog of all my animal experiences and have some bird stuff on it as well.

Thank you again for the help with this guy, might come to ya with more eventually hehee

[LovelySydney]

Thats an interesting looking little guy!!

[vle1170]

That he is, and he is very funny to watch too. He is fast as lightning so if you arent watching, you miss him. And he keeps trying but hasnt quite figured out the bird feeder yet.

I had put out a suet feeder for the birds but they never touched it and it started getting moldy so i threw it out. Not going to waste my money on that again.