Mystery Bird: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Polioptila caerulea

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea) - the gray colour, long tail and pattern of white on the outer retrices suggest a gnatcatcher. The lack of a brown wash on wings rules out the Black-tailed Gnatcatcher (Polioptila melanura), also found in Texas.

You can make out the beak, too, especially in the larger view, and it works well for Blue-gray Gnatcatcher also.

Black-tailed Gnatcatcher, while it occurs in Texas, doesn't come very close to Smith Point. It also should show a more graduated tail. In this bird, the two white-tipped rectrices that are visible are nearly the same length as the central ones. In a Black-tailed, they would be distinctly shorter.

So, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher for another reason.

Hmm, not much left here for me to do except determine gender, with females being a paler grey than males and also tending to have a slight brownish tinge to the wings, I'm going to hazard a guess that this is a female...

Also, of the nine subspecies recognised, only two are found in the US:

amoenissima, breeds in western US (southern Oregon east to southwest Wyoming) South to western Mexico ; non-breeding southwest US (central California, western and central Arizona, southern New Mexico, western Texas) and Mexico;

and caerulea, breeds from southeastern Canada, eastern Nebraska, central Kansas, central Texas and southern Florida; non-breeding southeast US South to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador;

therefore this would probably be the nominate Polioptila caerulea caerulea

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http://darwinspigeons.com