ML618988378
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Adult Male - 1
- Sounds
- Song
- Playback
- Playback not used
Media notes
Some human noise
Observation details
Continuing, found yesterday by "Avo Stilt". I think the bird had just been heard a minute or two before I arrived. This was one of the first birds I heard singing when I got out of the car. The bird was a short distance from the group of birders looking for it. We relocated it in a sycamore tree by the creek and followed it around as it repositioned in a few trees in the area. The bird sang loudly and repeatedly, both when it was perched in one spot (like advertising song), and while it foraged for food. It favored sycamore trees and pine trees the entire time I was present -- I did not see it in any of the other riparian trees or in oaks. Generally speaking, the bird was in the middle third of the sycamores and pines earlier in my visit, and had moved up to almost exclusively to the top third later in the morning. The bird was generally easy to locate by song. The song was surprisingly similar to a Yellow Warbler, and not really like the simple plain accelerating trill of a Northern Parula. Instead the song had two distinct parts. The first part consisted of 3-4 notes with the same cadence and much like the beginning of a Yellow Warbler "sweet-sweet-sweet" song. After hearing the bird sing a few times, I was able to pick out that these notes were slightly different from the Yellow Warblers in that they were less sharp/sweet, and had a little bit of a buzzy quality to them, enough that I could identify the bird's song even before it got to the more distinctive second part. The second part of the song was more like a Northern Parula, in that it had a rapid trill (faster than any Yellow Warbler or Orange-crowned Warbler around), and ending with an emphatic lower note. The song was reasonably easy to follow as the bird moved around. Visually, this was a small warbler, noticeably smaller than Yellow and Orange-crowned Warblers, with a short tail and a sharp pointed bill. The head and most of the upper parts were a slaty blue-gray, with a broad black mask around and well below the eyes. There were no eye arcs or other white markings on the face. The bill was triangular and pointed, with an orange-yellow lower mandible and dark upper mandible. The back was a bright lime-green triangle, The bird showed two wide but short white wingbars. The underparts were a bright yellow, with a deeper orangeish color around the throat (mostly seen in photos and not very contrasty in the field). The yellow extended well into the lower belly, and much more than I have seen in any Northern Parula. The vent and undertail coverts were white. The short tail was mostly white below. I did not pay attention to the color of the legs. Northern Parula the only confusion species, eliminated by extensive black mask in the face, no eye arcs, more extensive yellow on the underparts, and no dark "necklace" at the throat (this bird instead showing a clean yellow throat). I have no knowledge of separating subspecies, but it has been suggested by others that this song (not the simple trill of a Northern Parula) is that given by the Western Mexico subspecies S. p. pulchra.
Additional species
Technical information
- Recorder
- Zoom F3
- Microphone
- Rode NTG2
- Accessories
- Original file size
- 4.35 MB