ML378499001
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Absolutely amazing encounter and viewing of this species. Almost immediately after I arrived, I was cutting into the woods to use “the bathroom”, when I spotted a bird on the ground. It was just a silhouette, and I wasn’t actually sure it was a bird until it popped up onto a low perch a few meters away, ~ 10m from me. Lighting conditions were very poor, being still fairly early in the morning, dense overcast, in dark woods, and from whatever light there was, the bird was backlit. Nevertheless, a short look at the bird gave me the initial impression of a Connecticut Warbler. I could kind of make out an eye ring, and more so a contrasting drab “hooded” appearance, and yellow belly and undertail coverts. The undertail coverts looked long, giving a short-tailed impression. I only viewed the bird for a few brief moments, before it made a long flight at least 25-30m toward dense understory, and out of view. Despite very brief and very poor looks, the bird gave me a strong impression of a Connecticut Warbler, especially with respect to size, shape, and movements. I was relatively confident about this, but needed more confirmation. I put in at least 20, if not 30 or more minutes trying to re-locate the bird. I eventually began hearing chip notes from about 20-25m away that I immediately recognized as Connecticut Warbler chips. (I frequently review recordings of Connecticut Warbler chip notes during fall migration to be prepared for such encounters). The bird seemed extremely skulky at first, but was ultimately very observable. With a little more patience and persistence, I was able to spot the bird low to the ground. I then watched the bird as it gradually made its way from one side of me to the other, and was able to watch the bird for several minutes, perhaps even 10 or more minutes in total. At times the bird walked on the ground, but it also perched on low braches of understory plants, less than 0.5-1m above the ground. There were some areas of less dense understory, and the bird perched on some very exposed perches, giving incredible looks. At one point, the bird perched on a few very exposed branches only 4-5m from me, and remained at this distance for a couple of minutes. Lighting conditions had vastly improved, and the light angle was better. From this view visible features were very clearly Connecticut Warbler. The bird showed a very prominent completely eye ring, appearing big-eyed, and had a brownish-gray hood that extended to the breast and contrasted with a yellow belly and yellow undertail coverts. The throat was buffy-ish, and contrasted with the hood. Undertail coverts were long, and gave a short-tailed appearance. The bill was long, and the overall body was long and lanky for a warbler, appearing long-necked in some postures. Overall, a very distinctive and rather goofy-looking warbler. The bird produced occasional chip notes, and I was able to obtain some audio recordings with my phone. I heard at least 20 chip notes in total, and managed to get recordings of 8, including some when the bird was very close to me. Chip notes of this species are pretty distinctive, and distinct from other species that may look similar, such as Mourning and MacGillivray’s Warblers and Common Yellowthroat. Some of the chips I recorded were obtained while I was looking at the bird and could see it producing the vocalizations. In the second recording, Connecticut Warbler chip notes occur at 1.9s, 14.1s, and 42.6s into the recording. Sorry about the loud Blue Jay. An additional (though probably unnecessary) sidenote, in part because I find it very interesting, and in part as an explanation of spectrographic features of the chip notes: While breaking up my sound file and viewing spectrograms of my recording, I noticed that these chip notes show a very interesting harmonic structure and complexity that are very atypical for warbler chip notes. First, the chips contain harmonic overtones, appearing as multiple “copies” of the note stacked vertically on a spectrogram. These are present on both my recordings as well as other recordings of Connecticut Warbler chips that I looked at. Off the top of my head, I don’t think I’ve seen the primary chip note of any other warbler species showing harmonic overtones, including similar species such as Mourning and MacGillivray’s Warblers and Common Yellowthroat Secondly, there is a remarkable degree of complexity and frequency modulation within these short notes, seen especially with a zoomed in scale. The notes have an initial short and steep rise in frequency, following by a longer slower rise in frequency, then a rapid steep rise in frequency spanning ~4.5kHz, seeming to reach the maximum amplitude (or loudness) of the call at the top of this frequency rise, and then ending with a rapid drop in frequency spanning about the same range in frequency as the rapid rise. This final drop in frequency is much lower in amplitude than the rest of call, and is either very faint or absent in the calls I recorded. All of this change in frequency occurs within an ~0.05s timespan. This overall structure, and off the top of my head, degree of complexity, is very unique among warbler chips. The primary chips notes of warblers tend to be very simple sounds, spanning a wide range of frequency and lacking much, if any, frequency modulation. They appear more or less as a vertical line on a spectrogram, and this is true for the aforementioned similar warbler species. A quick look at several other recordings of Connecticut Warbler chip notes showed the same unique general structure described above, which is very distinct from other similar-looking warblers.
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