one way of looking at a blackbird but not a warbler

Cloudy calm morning effectively ended the recent series of windy blue-sky days. Although the tide was high this morning it was a so-called 'neap' tide -- much lower than the high 'spring' tides of past weeks (apparently the term 'spring tide' does not necessarily refer to the season). I could still walk out onto the marsh and was again attacked by Red-winged Blackbirds, this time both male and female. The birds squawk a lot and dive at the intruder (me) but always pull up short. The female landed nearby two or three times and I could see a juicy green worm in her beak. But she would not go in to feed her offspring for fear of giving away their location. I was simultaneously trying to follow a smallish brown-and-white swallow that was feeding over the marsh with the Chimney Swift, Barn Swallows and Purple Martins; it was either a Bank or a Rough-winged Swallow but I couldn't quite figure it out and I finally gave in to the Red-wing admonishments and left the scene.

A Chipping Sparrow and a Pine Warbler were trading songs and provided an opportunity to compare these very similar sounds, both short single-note trills repeated over and over at intervals of some seconds. The Chipper seem to lead and I would say his trill was slightly longer and somewhat more mechanical. The warbler would follow almost immediately with a trill that was marginally shorter and a bit more melodious with a slight drop in pitch at the end. Not all that much of a difference. A better clue was that the Pine Warbler was singing from near the tree-tops and often moved around. The trees were generally Pitch Pine but he also sometimes picked a deciduous tree; as I mentioned in earlier posts, we lost many of our pines to heavy storms but this Setophaga pinus seemed to know exactly where to find the survivors. I actually tried to get a good look at this warbler but he remained totally hidden in the high foliage except when he decided to zip out of his hiding place and streak over to another one. This ended up as a wild warbler chase but, except for the few moments in the open air (when I could see it was no sparrow), the bird entirely defeated me. All I can say for sure is that it was a warbler singing a trilly Pine Warbler song. This species has been regular in the past few years and has probably nested somewhere out of sight at the top of a local pine; I hope that it will continue to do so!     

Eric Salzman