Tyrannus couchii

We encountered this Couch’s Kingbird on a recent trip to the Rio Grande Valley. It looks almost exactly like the very widespread Tropical Kingbird but has a different call making it fairly easy to identify when they vocalize. The range of the Couch’s Kingbird is one of the smallest of the birds often referred to as the “valley specialties” making it particularly interesting to see. During our time with this bird we were able to move around a bit to get a more appealing composition. Of the shots that I got I liked this one with the yellow palm leaf in the background the best. I thought it was a little more interesting to the plain blue.

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