Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Adult Male - 1
- Sounds
- Song
- Playback
- Playback not used
Observation details
Found with Keith Klein, who actually laid eyes on the bird first. Only my second in NYS and second patch lifer of the morning! Incredibly, singing a spot-on YTWA song. Having already seen the KEWA, the main target of my visit, I decided to investigate the YTWA song I heard coming from down the trail running east from the bend in Forty Foot Road (40.7085790, -73.1605725). I’d gotten a text from Pat L. about the KEWA earlier that morning and a followup text that mentioned a YTWA was singing nearby. YTWA would also be a patch lifer so I went to investigate and hopefully obtain some documentation. I tracked down the bird but was only getting glimpses of movement in a small, vine-covered tree, so I captured an audio recording (attached) in case I couldn’t obtain photos. Keith joined me shortly thereafter, thinking I’d refound the KEWA, which he’d only heard at that point. YTWA song continued to emanate from the same tree, then moved to an adjacent one, but the bird singing it still offered only shadowy glimpses. Then, as I was scanning the branches with my bins, Keith said something about a Black-throated Gray Warbler. Confused, I thought maybe he’d just gotten a poor look at the expected YTWA. But when I lowered my bins I saw a bird in the open on a lower branch…and damned if it wasn’t a BTYW! I managed to fire off a couple of bursts with my camera (the poor results attached). We lost track of the bird not long after. We were both jubilant and nonplussed. Was there a BTYW AND a YTWA present? Playback of the songs of both species and a quick check of range maps pretty much ruled out the possibility of a hybrid but raised the question of whether a BTYW could sing the song of a YTWA, as far fetched as that seemed. But this possibility was confirmed later when Shai M. and Pat L. arrived and eventually got looks at this bird after several minutes of effort tracking the YTWA song. They saw only this bird in the trees from which the song had been emanating. No visual of a YTWA was ever obtained by any birders present then or later. Subsequently the bird moved around a lot and stayed higher in the canopy than when it was first found, providing infrequent and unsatisfying views, all while continuing to sing the YTWA song, never the one expected from this species. Quite an exciting if mystifying morning.
Additional species
Technical information
- Recorder
- iPhone 14
- Microphone
- Accessories
- Original file size
- 4.73 MB