An unexpected rare bird in the Battle Creek, Michigan area, the Ash-throated Flycatcher, excited the Michigan birding community over the 2024 end-of-year holiday break.
With warmer winter temperatures in the 30’s and 40’s Fahrenheit, and sometimes reaching as high as 50 degrees Fahrenheit, birders throughout Michigan and nearby states trekked to the western Michigan area to view the bird typically found in western and southwest United States.
I was one of the birders making the journey!
We arrived in late afternoon on a sunny day to the residential area, and had a quick chat with the homeowner about the bird and native plants before another birder saw me and said, “Deborah, it’s over here and easy to see!”
I ended my chat with the homeowner about wet meadow native plants and quickly walked over to the adjacent woods.
Peering through tree branches about 10 feet from the road, I found a small brownish-gray bird with distinctive copper-colored edges on the wings foraging low to the ground.
Life bird (first time seen) number 332 for me!
The bird hopped from branch to branch in the woods before flying across the homeowner’s front lawn to a red-berried tree next to the driveway. A couple minutes later, the bird flew off behind the house.
Seeing the Ash-throated Flycatcher in Michigan reminded me of when an Ivory Gull appeared in Michigan in 2017.
It was another rare bird outside its typical range.
Sadly, the fate of the Ash-throated Flycatcher was similar to the Ivory Gull I saw in 2017.
On New Year’s Day 2025, after a cold front and snow showers moved through the Battle Creek area, the Ash-throated Flycatcher was seen struggling after crash-landing to the ground, flying up to a tree, where it fell to the ground, curling up in the snow.
The bird was boxed and prepared for transfer to the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. The Battle Creek hotspot location description for the Ash-throated Flycatcher was updated to show it died on January 1, 2025.
