Hi John, the activity that you witnessed was probably hawking, which is the name for flycatching where the bird flies up from a perch to catch a flying insect. Another possiblity is that it was some kind of display flight. In either case I do not know of any bird (excluding a couple of hunting hawks) that will hover like that for that long.
As to the identity of the bird, there is not a lot to go on. A gray bird somewhere between the size of a robin and larger than a hummingbird. From color it could have been a Catbird. By its hawking it could have been a Yellow-rumped Warbler, although there is a lot more to the description that would stand out, or a Phoebe, which is actually brown. Or lastly an Eastern Kingbird, which has a gray back. Of course if you live in the middle of prairie in SW Minnesota, it is one set of birds completely different from living in a pine forest in NE Minnesota. Steve Weston on Quigley Lake in Eagan [email protected] ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Cc: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 9:52 PM Subject: [mou] Unknown Bird > > > > > I saw an unusual bird this week. Could you help me identify the it? It > was gray in color. Initially as it flew into my yard I thought it was a > robin but it was smaller. As it turned I saw it had a gray breast. What > was most unusual was the birds behavior. It would fly, stop in mid-air > like a hummingbird for about 5 seconds and then it would fly again. It > stayed a few feet off the ground landing on the cross member of a swing set > and landing in the lower branches of a small tree. It did this several > times so I had time to ask to ask my wife and kids to come watch the bird. > They initially thought the bird was a hummingbird but it was too large and > was so plain in color that we concluded it was not a hummingbird. > > Thanks for any help you can provide. > > > John J. Portz > > _______________________________________________ > mou-net mailing list > [email protected] > http://cbs.umn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mou-net
