On 18 January 2001, Rusty Trump and I decided to visit a small farm pond south of Thomasville, GA, that has a history of producing some pretty good rarities, per Jack Dozier.  The pond is located on the north side of Lower Boston Rd., just east of US 19.

Rusty and I arrived at the pond in the late morning and began to scan the pond and surrounding pastureland.  While scanning the area, I noticed some activity in a right-of-way further west along the south side of  Lower Boston Rd.  As we were picking through the mixed flock that had gathered to scold some unseen menace, a kingbird-sized bird flew out of the right-away, over our heads and towards the power lines near the pond.

As the bird flew away from us, I immediately noticed the bird's black tail with a flash of white on the outer tail feathers, yellow undertail coverts and grayish back.  Western Kingbird immediately came to mind.  The bird landed on a phone line, allowing further study.

After a brief stay on the phone line, it flew across the street to a snag, where it remained for about 15 minutes.  During this period of time, it occasionally set out to chase a passing insect.

We were able to photograph the bird, and although the photos are rather poor, they show several characteristics of a Western Kingbird.  The first photo was taken with a Canon Elan II with a 300mm lens and a 1.4x teleconverter.  The second and third photos were taken by holding the Canon camera with a 50mm lens up to the ocular of a Kowa scope.

While studying the bird, we noticed the following characteristics:

• Head basically gray, with a darker gray mask.

• Throat, cheeks and upper breast much paler gray.

• Lower breast light yellow, gradually fading to a deeper yellow on the belly, flanks and undertail coverts.

• Tail blackish, with white feather edgings on the outer retrices; tip of tail was also black.

• Upperparts grayish, but wings slightly darker, especially on the tertials; wingbars and flight feathers (primaries, secondaries and tertials) with somewhat off-white edging, but much more noticeable on the tertials.

Per the Annotated Checklist of Georgia Birds (1986), Western Kingbird is a rare winter visitor throughout the state, but is more regular on the coast.

Although Western Kingbird is a regular, albeit rare, visitor to Georgia, birders should always carefully scrutinize these birds for the very similar Cassin's Kingbird and even Tropical/Couch's Kingbird, all western or primarily Mexican species that have been recorded along the Gulf Coast and in Florida, but not yet in Georgia.

Directions to the pond are as follows (refer to DeLorme’s Georgia Atlas and Gazetteer, page 66, grid C2 ):

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