mystery warbler

Eileen Schwinn came over early this morning to help relocate yesterday's Western Tanager. Alas, we didn't find it but, in recompense, we had a nice influx of migrants topped off by this 'mystery' warbler (or, if you prefer, 'confusing fall warbler'). We saw this bird three times. Or was it three different look-alikes? And what was it? The photo on the left seems to indicate an immature first-year female Mourning Warbler with a yellow throat above a grayish breast band. But there are a couple of confusing elements. One is that the breast band in this photo is actually a shadow from one of the bare branches; as shown by the other photos, the yellow extended pretty evenly from the throat to the undertail. However, I will admit that there are traces of streaking on the breast visible in the right-hand photo, Another problem is that, as the middle photo shows, the bird has a thin but complete eye ring, not the more expected broken eye ring. On the other hand, the uniform olive-green coloration of the head and back and the uniform yellow of the breast mitigate against the few other possibilities! A Great Crested Flycatcher was a migrant as the local birds have long since departed. The Brown Thrashers are still here along with many Gray Catbirds. The mimids, along with Robins and a pair of Veeries (new for the season) were eating Tupelo berries which are ripening fast. Common Yellowthroats all over the place suggest that these birds are starting to move down from the north. Ditto for Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (see Eileen Schwinn's pretty photo of a glittering young hummer below). Eric Salzman