CLOSED: Here's pic #2 .

Here's pic #2 .

Looks' like a Mockingbird to me. I just now read your posting in the Birdwatching forum. It's a little hard to tell when they are puffed up like that. I was going by the bill, which looks' like a Mockingbird, and the dark strips on the wings.

This message was edited Feb 20, 2010 8:50 PM

Agree with Mockingbird - this pic makes it clearer

Resin

What size is the bird?? The Mockingbird is 9" and the Blue-gray gnatcatcher is only 4" according to my field guide, that is a really big difference.

The bill doesn't look as curved in this one... have not seen a Mockingbird ever, but this photo surely look's like it.

The fence the bird is on is 6" across so I don't think he's 9".

I feel confident based on it's size, compared to your fence, color and eye ring, that it is a Blue-gray gnatcatcher as Resin had originally said, and not the larger Mockingbird.

My field guide says 10" 1/2 for a Mockingbird...I was able to dig up my shots of a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher from last summer. Still think your bird is a Mockingbird.

not the best of shots but I wasn't that great with a camera...

all the same bird

last

Burd your photos are pretty good.

Based on the size of the fence board the bird is way too small for a mockingbird.

Here is a photo of a White-crowned sparrow on my 5" fence board.

It could be; the bird is head-on so very foreshortened; it is certainly too large for a Gnatcatcher. Bear in mind that the measurements quoted in bird books are for stretched-out museum specimens, not real live birds hunched up in a normal perched position.

Resin

In this top pic I see a hint of wing stripes that I always notice on Mockingbird. It sure looks MB to me but bear in mind I have no experience with the other candidates. I agree with Resin about the angle- that this bird is longer in real life than 6 inches of the fence.