Finally today the High Island hybrid that had people head scratching and me desperate to get it on "film" played ball and showed extremely well. Actually yesterday if you were not me you had the chance to shoot it as it was pretty friendly then too, although I guess I came late to the party in that respect. A lot of debating and even a few heated arguments have been ignited by this extremely interesting and rare bird, that now appears (by consensus) to be a Townsend's Warbler x Black-throated Green Warbler hybrid. Why you ask? Well the bird has the black cheek markings that had us first hoping/thinking it was a Townsend's Warbler, a western warbler rare in these parts. But then when Scott Watson and others got the "money" shots it was clear something was just not right about it-it had no clear yellow breast as a pure "Towny" would normally have, but possessed the black cheeks that a "pure" Black-throated Green Warbler would have. Townsend's x Hermit was debated (as there is a very similar bird in the plate in Jon Dunn's excellent warbler guide labeled as such), though finally and with input from many we are sticking to Black-throated Green x Townsend's Warbler (even rarer and more interesting than a pure towny in my book)... for now!
4 comments:
What a very interesting bird.
Absolutely, rarer than a Townsend's and way more interesting. On top of that a week or so ago we also had a bird that people thought was a Cerulean initially but appeared like a Northern Parula with absolutely no yellow on the underside and no green patch on the back. So it has been quite the spring for head scratching hybrids so far!
The hybrids are fun to try and figure out. That other bird sounds interesting too. Perhaps some of those hybrids will make an appearance up in Ohio in a couple weeks.
A very interesting bird! Great photos too.
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