The black-tailed gnatcatcher is only 4.5 to 5 inches long and much of that length is attributable to its tail. The body is blue-gray with white underparts and it has a long black tail lined with white outer feathers. In summer the male has a black cap that goes down to the eyes.
I was at the Sonny Bono Salton Sea NWR on May 27, hiking among the native trees that line the large field near the visitor center. This sentence from Birds of the World describes it perfectly: "[O]nce spotted, a slender, minuscule bird is seen incessantly whipping its tail from side to side as it flits and darts around in desert thorn scrub in search of insects." Getting a photo of it is quite a challenge.
It is found in extreme eastern California, southern Nevada, extreme southwestern Utah, much of southern Arizona, portions of southern New Mexico, much of western Texas and into quite a bit of Mexico.
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| Black-tailed gnatcatcher range from Wikipedia. |
You did pretty well getting pictures of a hard to photograph bird.
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