Thursday, September 22, 2016

Some Warbler Done Somebody Wrong Song

 A few weeks ago I was walking along an undeveloped portion of the Airline Rail Trail. It is an elevated trail which is bordered on one side by forest and overlooks the Connecticut River from the other side. Over the last couple of years I've found a few interesting birds there including good numbers of Black Vultures and Hooded Warblers during Fall migration. This time around I saw some Hooded Warblers again and a large number of House and Carolina Wrens, about 8 of each in a short stretch.

I also encountered many Common Yellowthroats along the way. I thought that I was going to run into another one when I heard this warbler singing but the song wasn't right for a Yellowthroat. 

The possibility of Kentucky Warbler popped into my head because one had been seen a few miles west of this location a month before and I was told about another a few years back just about a mile north of this location. I didn't get a chance to see the Kentucky which was in town a month before because it was in a private area and the statute of approved viewing limitations had run out by the time I had the opportunity to see it. 

I had one good 2 second view of this bird and judging by the face pattern it looked like a Kentucky Warbler to me. However, this would have been my first live view of one so I needed better evidence than a 2 second look, half of which didn't count because I was a bit shellshocked. 

After 45 minutes of trying, I wasn't able to get another good view of this bird. It was singing repeatedly so I thought that a recording of its song would confirm my sighting for sure. Here is my desperate attempt at capturing the song and hoping to get it into the camera view at the same time.

As it turns out I was wrong. After sending the song to a few experts I received responses like: "It's reminiscent of a Kentucky but I can't be sure" and "I can't say it's not a Kentucky but then again I don't know what else it would be". It would have been a nice addition to my town year list but in the end I decided that I just better let this one go. This warbler sure sang me the wrong song! It reminded me of that  pop hit in the 70's by Bj Thomas titled "Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song" 

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