[Birdtalk] Re: Banding Mystery Warbler solved (and another day of banding and some milestones!)

[Jason Pietrzak]

After sending out my email a few days ago about a mystery warbler
encountered while bird banding in Moab, I received a TON of emails, most of
which suggested Yellow Warbler. Other suggestions also included
Orange-crowned, Nashville, and still others raised further questions. So a
big THANK YOU to everybody on the list for your insight and opinions and for
making Utah birdtalk such a useful learning tool!

Upon reviewing the emails and revisiting the photos and observations of the
other banders, we came to the conclusion that the bird was indeed a Yellow
Warbler. Although I had initially had reservations about this based on head
shape and bill, I've found that the bill is not actually out of character
for a YWAR, and the head shape, as you may know, can vary quite a bit
in-hand... Maybe the feathers were tussled in the net or in handling,
thereby giving that flat look. Aside from that, there was just too much
yellow in too many places for this to be anything other than a YWAR...
including the yellow edges on the tail feathers but also pretty much
everywhere on the body. So hopefully I'm starting to get a hang of IDing
birds in hand, but I am surprised to find it so different (and more
difficult in some ways) from normal field ID.

Today we had another banding session, with highlights including a Catbird
(juvenile - which means they are breeding here) as well as a load of Lesser
Goldfinches that came in at once, perhaps 25! They were all netted near a
grove of sunflowers. Needless to say, I am now pretty familiar with LEGOs.
This was the last banding session of the summer, but we will be resuming in
the fall (end of September) in case anybody is interested in checking it
out. FYI - the fall migration is so busy down here that there are typically
20+ birds each hour, as opposed to the typical 2 or 3 we've had lately.

Lastly, I went out on the La Sals yesterday evening to take care of
something on a couple bear survey sites and I saw two types of Grouse on the
road. A lone Dusky Grouse beneath an Oak grove and a small flock of Ruffed
Grouse (5 juv. and an adult) which means Ruffed Grouse are breeding at least
as far south as the southeastern corner of the La Sals. Coincidentally, that
finally put me over the 100 species mark in Grand County! I'm sure I'll be
adding more to that, but I'm going back to New Hampshire next week to get
married so birding will have to wait.

Keep on birding!

Jason Pietrzak
Moab, UT


On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 8:15 AM, Jason Pietrzak <pietrzak at gmail.com> wrote:

> Last Thursday I joined the Moab Bird Club bird-banders at Matheson Preserve
> for a morning of banding. One bird we netted caused some controversy and I
> was hoping for some feedback from birdtalk.
>
> Nick Eason sent me these photos, which I've posted online for all to view
> here:
>
> http://ptrzk.com/Bandmystery/
>
> The bird was Warbler size, but various people have argued for different
> IDs.
>
> Any thoughts out there?
>
> Jason Pietrzak
> Moab, UT
>
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