Warbler Quiz!
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Jun 4, 2009 | by Kevin Loughlin
Warblers can be frustrating! As I previously mentioned, most warblers can be identified by just their head… but what if you never get to see the head? They flit behind a leaf just as you get your binoculars or camera lens focused on them. They never sit still and they prefer to remain high in the canopy of the forest causing the well know affliction, warbler neck.
Here are three warblers I photographed this year. A few of my images of these birds were pretty good, but you can’t get them all… see if you can figure out who these guys are!
Image #1
Image #2
Image #3
Answers will be posted next week…
photos © Kevin Loughlin
6 Comments
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Get a copy of A Field Guide to Warblers of North America by Dunn and Garrett. Go to the last pages of the color plates at the front, which show the under-tail view of all the warblers. Those two pages are priceless.
With Field Guide to Warbler at hand to corroborate my guesses I'm pretty sure I know what they are, though I'm assuming they're eastern warblers. But so as not to ruin it for anyone else I think it's probably best to keep those guesses to myself. I would say that one is relatively easy but the other two are a bit harder, even with the warbler book at hand!
How about:
Black-throated Green Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Jim
Since Jim has made a published guess I'll make my own. I hadn't earlier because I always think it's more fun guessing if you're not influenced by what anyone else has said. Hopefully other readers will just read the post and make their guesses before reading the comments.
And I think I would have been wrong on one of my guesses:
Magnolia
Black-Throated Blue
Chestnut-Sided.
The Black-Throated Blue seems obvious because of the white wing patch.
The Chestnut-Sided I decided based on the small chestnut patch on flank AND the tail pattern. I had to look at the warbler guide mentioned earlier and look at the tail pattern to convince myself on this one.
The first one was harder. I guessed Magnolia based on the dark flank streaking and also the large white wing bar. But the greenish back looked wrong. And I couldn't find any sign of the yellow on vent. I thought possibly a Black-Throated Green based on the back but I was sure that they didn't have such strong flank streakng. Jim's guess above made me pick up the warbler guide and take a look. Sure enough they do have flank streaks that are that large and go that far back, and a yellow wash on vent. So I think Jim is right on this one.
And I hope no one reads these comments before making their own guesses.
Sorry if I wasn't supposed to post answers here! Didn't see anything about that in Kevin's post. And they aren't "guesses" 🙂
Jim
I'm not even going there….educated or un….not a chance I know what any of these are …. I'll have to get that book!!