Monday, June 01, 2009

Cape-may Warbler

(Photo by J. Lambert)

Above is a bird that may seem confusing to many birders.  But it is in fact a drab drab drab female Cape May Warbler, and served as life bird for me.  How on earth do you pick this out you may ask? (or may not ask if you have your Sibley memorized!)  

Here are the things that stood out to me:
1. Sharp, decurved, dark bill.  
2. Greenish-yellowish Rump
3.  The sides of the neck are rather pale
4.  The bit of yellow on the face
5. Overall a gray-ish blurry streaked bird.  Finer streaking would point elsewhere where as the blurry streaking really forces the issue here.  

Sibley depicts this although the bird drawn has more drasticly edged coverts.  Studying birds like this is important so that if you stumble on a drab bird you still know what to look for and what you're looking at!

While I did not post this bird in this mechanism I'm going to attempt to start to post confusing quiz birds so we can all learn a bit about different plumages and things to note.  I bet you can't wait for Fall Warblers!

LK

6 comments:

Dan Huber said...

as a beginner, I find posts like this very helpful. I look forward to your further posts. thanks

Lowie said...

Good! I'm glad that it will be helpful - and this way maybe more people than mom and dad will read my blog!

(love you mom and dad!)

Anonymous said...

My annoying gull can be one of your quiz birds

-J

Lowie said...

All you can learn from that is that gulls can be very confusing.... maybe I should put scott's "yellow-legged herring gull" up and his tuvu's

Dawn Fine said...

Howdee Lowie..
dont know why I havent added your blog to my blogroll before..but you really have a nice informative blog..for us that are still learning...

I am not sure what Chris from Picus blog has planned for us on June 13th but if we can fit NH in that would be great! Sounds like you are a very experienced birder...so I could learn allot from you.

Is there a way you can add email update link to your blog? I think its just an addition from google feedburner.
I find that I dont care for google reader..my blogroll is so long I miss allot of new posts.
I just added an email address just for new blog posts of the blogs I follow and hope that this way I can keep up with my fav. blogs.

Hope to meet you soon.

Lowie said...

Should be all set. I've been meaning to do that for ages.

LK