Typical Songbird Photograph: Identity Revealed

The Hawthorn Orchard, where I took that poor-quality photograph in last week's teaser post, is a remarkable patch during spring migration. Hawthorn flowers bring in the insects, which bring in the migrating birds. And in mid-late May there are a lot of flowering Hawthorns, a lot of insects, and therefore a lot of songbirds. Most hawthorns in the orchard are less than 30 feet tall, many only 15 - 20 feet high. The best way to avoid "warbler neck"? Don't look up, look horizontal! This is where you go for paralyzing looks at warblers that are often difficult to lay glass on - Bay-breasted, Blackburnian, Wilson's, Tennessee, and many, many more.

Luckily, the photo I presented was the last in the series. While trolling through the shrubby Hawthorns I successfully tracked down a lively weeta-weeta-weetsee.


The singer was a very handsome male Magnolia Warbler, a species Alexander Wilson originally called "Black-and-Yellow Warbler" when he collected one from a Magnolia tree in 1810. That was unfortunate, and not just for the individual he shot: he selected "magnolia" as the scientific name, Dendroica magnolia. Unfortunately, magnolia trees are not a big part of this species life history. These birds like dense, young growth; nests are usually in a conifer.

No matter, a rose by any other name still looks stunning. I had a reasonable amount of time to witness him flitting among the branches of a Hawthorn, maybe 20 feet from me. Eventually I had the presence of mind to drop the binoculars and raise the camera, capturing some foraging behavior.

Classic Magnolia Warbler foraging, scanning and probing the
undersides of leaves from below. Note the undertail pattern, as the
white patch towards the body and wide, dark band across the tips
are a very useful diagnostic feature for identifying tail-only birds.

Magnolia Warblers, or "Maggies" if you're in the hip birding crowd (a group who must all have Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" running through their head whenever someone finds one), feed primarily on caterpillars and a variety of other tree-dwelling organisms: leaf beetles, weevils, leafhoppers, spiders. This one thoroughly scanned the leaves, striking at unseen (to me) items. While they typically focus on the undersides of leaves and conifer needles, this one was checking every surface. Sometimes twice.

Any morning where you stumble across a beauty like this is an unequivocal successful trip. Enjoy this sequence of Maggie foraging - he was trying every leaf, bud, nook, and cranny. As always, click on the images for larger versions.

"Hullo, what's this?"

"Ah, yes, this looks promising indeed."

Smacks mandibles, munch, munch

"Blechh! Oooh, what's up here?"

This went on for a few minutes, until I got the parting shot. Now do you see a Maggie?

There is a bird in there, promise.
Click on the image for a larger version.

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Photo Files: Typical Songbird Photograph

From the photo files of 19 May 2009 . . .

This spring had two general highlights: I got out birding more often than the past few migrations, and I spent much more time photographing what I saw.

Well, let's be honest: trying to photograph what I saw. Here's a typical image I captured.

There is a bird in there, promise. Click on the image for a larger version.

I'm pretty sure it's not just me, I suspect many avian photographers wind up with high percentage of "missed" shots. Huh, upon a very brief further reflection I actually have two categories of "missed," those non-photos where I never even raised the camera before the moment disappeared, and those where I shot a picture but missed the subject.

This year I've seen the number of "Damn, wished I'd gotten the camera on that!" instances slowly decrease while the "Damn, I almost had it!" instances slowly increase. I take that to be a good thing in my development as a photographer (pun absolutely intended).

Hopefully I'll continue sliding towards a place where I'll get recognizable images more often than not, but the more-experienced photogs please let me know: is that even a reasonable goal? Anyway, until that day, I'll continue to take my photographic lemons and turn them into blog-post lemonade: identity quizzes!

So, here's another one. Any thoughts on what this fleeing bird might be? Image is from Ithaca, NY on May 19, 2009. For what it's worth, it's from the "Hawthorn Orchard," a wooded patch of dense Hawthorns some 15 - 30 feet tall.

Answer, with better images, coming shortly.

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Who Am I? Answered!

In my previous post I asked if you could identify which bird sang a song that gave this spectrogram, the trick being you could only "see" the sound - I didn't give any audio.

Click the image for a larger version.

Nate commented on the repeated up-and-down pattern, which translates to notes that are rising and falling. During June we have a few birds whose song fits the rising-falling pattern, but only one who matches the fluidity of this song. Have a listen to the video below to hear the actual song. Easier to identify this way, yes?

Click to play - you may need to turn up the volume
as I lost sound quality while making the video.

Congratulations go to Nate for correctly identifying the songster as a Common Yellowthroat. I hoped some guesses would come in for American Robin, Red-eyed or Warbling Vireo, possibly Scarlet Tanager, all species plausible in our yard that have an element of rising-and-falling songs. Three of those species could be eliminated by the continuous nature of the song: American Robin, Red-eyed Vireo, and Scarlet Tanager would all have pauses between phrases, which would show up as breaks of silence between the elements of the song.

In addition to being a lower frequency, this image of an
American Robin song shows clear breaks between the phrases.

Warbling Vireos sing a continuous song, but it is much buzzier than a Common Yellowthroat's song. This would be shown by heavily modulated notes on the spectrogram, while the yellowthroat's song is characterized by smooth, pure notes rising and falling.

A Common Yellowthroat belts out its song.

Now I know two things: the new recording units are working out pretty well, and you have to get up earlier than a yellowthroat to put one over on Nate. I'll come up with a harder one next time!

Common Yellowthroat and American Robin recorded 07 Jun 2009 in Horseheads, NY.
Common Yellowthroat photographed May 2009, Spencer Crest Nature Center, Corning, NY.

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Quiz Bird Answer

Quiz bird revealed, read on to learn its identity.

A headless passerine: who am I?

I photographed this headless-looking bird on a March 20^th trip to the Horseheads Marsh (aka, Holding Point) in Horseheads, NY. Those who guessed correctly narrowed it to one of the "Little Brown Jobs," and nishiki_85 noted the streaked, rusty back and the two white wing-bars, surmising the bird is an American Tree Sparrow.

A little more information here, the rusty cap and a gray face visible.

In addition to tree sparrows there are eight "LBJs" that we might expect in this area at this time of year, some more common than others. Looking carefully you may note the flanks are clean, not streaked, and slightly buffy. This helps eliminate several species: Song, Savannah, Fox, and Vesper Sparrows should all show streaking on the flanks.

Those relatively broad, white wing-bars are helpful, too. They reinforce this bird is not Song, Savannah, Fox nor Vesper, but also eliminate Swamp, White-throated, even White-crowned (I find it wonderfully bizarre those are winter residents at my folks place in Rochester, NY but rare here, 70 miles southeast).

House Sparrows, an honorary LBJ sparrow, do have white in the wings, but a large, single patch rather than two bars.

The only other possible (I wouldn't call it expected, but eBird allows it) sparrow is the Field Sparrow. How to separate these two without seeing the obvious differences, such as face and bill color/pattern? Well, hmmm. First, probability says American Tree Sparrows are much more likely than Field Sparrows, so lean in that direction. Then, wait until it shows its face. Seriously, in looking for differences in the visible parts (back, wings, tail), I'm not sure I could tell.

Gentle readers, how would you tell them apart?

Now you can see it all: bicolored bill, gray face with rusty cap and eyeline,
chestnut and black wings with white wing bars, brownish rump.

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First Day of Spring - Quiz Bird

To celebrate the first day of spring I made a quick stop by the Horseheads Marsh (aka, the Holding Point) this evening. Two things crossed my mind as I pulled in: it's wonderful to drive home in not just daylight, but sunlight, followed by how deceptive this spring day was. Bright and sunny, but breezy with a temperature in the upper 30*s (F).

One bird surprised me when it flushed from under my feet as I walked the railroad tracks between two pools. As it flew it took a few seconds to process the fact I had a camera and I should "shoot" it.

Here's the view I had. Can you identify it? (Click the image for a larger version.)



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The Latest eBird Map Quiz

New map available on eBird's Map Quiz. They provide a range map, based on submitted observations, you guess logically deduce the species.

What species could this be?

eBird Map Quiz 11

And what about eBird Map Quiz 10, did you get it? I didn't.

eBird Map Quiz 10: The range map of the American Black Duck.
Check the eBird site for a description of how you can deduce it.

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Morbid Bird Quiz Answer

It took a mere 27 minutes after I posted the quiz for N8 of The Drinking Bird fame to find the post and nail the correct answer. The white feather tips were enough for his tentatively positive, or maybe a positively tentative, identification. Then again it was probably a positively positive ID, what other bird could this be?

Original quiz bird photo

I thought this might be a bit tougher than it was for two reasons: difficulty in orienting some parts of the bird, and the fact that it was overcast yielded little color in the photo, just shades of gray and white. Northern Mockingbird, my only reasonable alternate thought, is a gray and white bird common in the Southern Tier of NY. It fits the color scheme, but the pattern on the visible feathers is wrong. If those white-tipped feathers are from the tail you would expect pure gray feathers or pure white (immature mockingbirds may have some irregularly patterned or spotted feathers, which these clearly aren't. And if these were wing feathers we'd expect to find the white near the base of the feathers, not the tips.

Check out this mockingbird in flight to clearly see those patterns.

In a nutshell, mockingbirds don't have white-tipped wings or tails, but Blue Jays do.

Here's a second shot, different angle.


The tail, seen just below and parallel to the wire, shows the black-banded blue tail with white tips. Nicely played, N8!

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A Morbid Quiz Bird

Things have been crazy busy, but I stopped on my way home when I found a bird I didn't recognize. Like many car-spotted birds, it was on an overhead wire, unlike many birds on a wire, it was hanging upside down.


Only once have I seen a bird in this position before, a Great Egret in Louisiana that had apparently been electrocuted. The muscles had clenched, the foot unable to release. In its state it, obviously, couldn't consciously let go. Who knows how long it hung there before someone removed it - it was hanging near the entrance of the Sabine NWR, probably not the first thing you want your visitors to see.

Any guesses on the identification of this one?

New Bird ID Quiz

Well, it's not really new, it's been going on for much of the summer by the folks over at eBird. Instead, it's a new type of quiz: rather than seeing the bird and figuring out (or guessing) what it is, they're providing a range map based on actual eBird data. We have to figure out the species.

This is important to know when viewing the maps: they present all data from all months from 2003- 2008. So, you're seeing all accepted sightings of breeding, wintering, dispersing, migrating, and wandering birds.

Last week's quiz, the first taking into account all of the Americas.
Have a guess, then find out if you were right on the eBird site.
Click on the image for a larger version.

I find the process fun (the product of a warped mind, I suppose), and very paradoxical: it's not as easy as it sounds, but it's not as hard, either. I doubt many people will think it's easy, unless your name also happens to be on the cover of a field guide and you've spent years of your life assembling data to produce similar maps.

But taking some time to digest what you're seeing, such as concentrations of sightings, areas of infrequent sightings, locations completely lacking the species, or a scatter-shot of non-contiguous sightings, you can start to eliminate obvious groups of birds and, if persistent, whittle it down the right species.

This week's quiz. The answer should be up on eBird soon,
but try and figure it out based on what you see.
Click on the image for a larger version.

Feel free to leave guesses and/or answers in the comments, along with your reasoning. AT the moment I have no idea what it is, but I'm hoping a bit of thinking later this evening will help me narrow it down. Good luck!

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