I'd have to agree with Marty on this one....I've had plenty of experience
with eastern & western warblers, and this mystery bird sure sounds a lot
more like a 'myrtle' yellow-rump than a blackburnian. While the pattern is
similar to some ceruleans, it seems to lack any of the buzzy/reedy quality
typical of that species.
Mark Phinney
on 7/1/03 10:36 AM, Marty Michener at wrote:
Greg:
At 09:40 AM 7/1/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>Thanks Martyn and Doug
>
>Checking again with Borror's sonagrams I can see you
>are right about the Blackburnian.
Well EnjoyBirds Blackburnian is MUCH higher pitched - 6 - 9 kHz, not 3 - 5
as in your sample. I am not sure about how diagnostic pitch is. The
"Warbler Guide" by Dunn and Garrett, (without a single reference to actual
pitch, actual time or to any spectrogram, and hence almost useless in song
diagnosis), but says the species is often "too high pitched for many
birders to hear" - a statement usually reserved for well above 6 kHz, where
this mystery species has NO energy.
I do agree that 1, 2 and 4 are likely the same species, but I have
recordings of a Yellow-rump doing a similar high-slurred ending (which I
recorded on three successive days in Massachusetts, failing to see it and
believing it to be a Blackburnian, but finally seeing it on the last day
and visually it was a completely typical eastern Yellow-rump). They are
usually in about this right range, and of extremely variable timing. So,
I would give the probability for Dendroica fuscus less than 80% because of
this atypical voice range.
Now if you were to consider a Cerulean I might agree with you. Much lower
and in the right pitch range, the usual Cerulean song simply rises at the
end in a "zhreee?", and so this pattern in these three examples is
certainly atypical, but the pitch range is more nearly correct. Certainly
the Cerulean is declining in numbers but still likely abundant in the
Catskills. So that's my vote, I guess. I do overall agree with Greg the
song, like such a high percentage of warbler recordings, is problematic.
>The AMRO threw me because of the flute-like phrases that I had not heard
>before.
that may be from all the mountain air ;^)
> Greg Kunkel
my best regards,
Marty Michener
MIST Software Associates PO Box 269, Hollis, NH 03049
EnjoyBirds.com - Software that migrates with you.
http://www.EnjoyBirds.com
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