BELL'S VIREO!

As I was walking out on my marsh trail this morning as dawn, my eye was caught by the movement and white undersides of two birds foraging together at the edge between the woodland and the shrubs at the edge of the marsh. One bird was easily identifiable as an American Redstart female -- gray head, eye ring, white breast, single wing bar, yellow patches on the sides and on the tail. The other bird, seen head on and showing almost all the same characters, was surely the same. But wait. Something was wrong. Bird #2 was smaller, had a shorter tail and no yellow patches. What kind of warbler could that be? I climbed up on the old dock that is beached right in the middle of the trail and was able to get better looks. Bird #2 did not even have a warbler bill but the small stout bill of a vireo. Furthermore the eye-ring was actually a kind of weakly marked spectacles and the single wing bar was white, not yellow.

On October 26, 1996, I saw a very similar bird at the foot on Ponquogue Bridge just off Dune Road. I believed then (and still believe now) that that bird was a BELL'S VIREO. I ended up writing a article for The Kingbird on this bird and the issue of its ocurrence and ID in New York State ("Bell's Vireo in New York" vol. 47 #3, September 1997, pp. 168-175.). This article, which was concerned with the problems of accurately identifying Bell's Vireo in New York, actually won a prize; it also provoked a lot of responses, not all of them favorable. The Eastern form of Bell's Vireo, Vireo belli belli, which nests as far east as Ohio, can be confused with the immature White-eyed Vireo.

I refound this morning's bird at least 5 or 6 times, always at the edge of the marsh in the screen of bushes and outer branches of the trees behind, and was able to observe it closely -- or as closely as you can with a bird that is constantly in motion -- from all sides and over fairly extended periods of time. Only one other person saw this bird: Eileen Schwinn who came over when I called. The bird was not photographed (in any case, photography would have been a challenge).

I believe that this bird was a Bell's Vireo and not an immature White-eyed Vireo (or, for that matter, anything else) for the following reasons: (1) it was tremendously active, moving constantly from branch to branch, twig to twig, bouncing and flipping up and down from low bushes to the tree foliage behind in its search for insects; (2) in the course of this active search, it would constantly flip or twitch its tail, sometimes also flicking its wings in the process; (3) the effect of spectacles (eye-ring with eye stripe or a partial supercilium) was messy, not clean-cut as it appears in White-eyed and other vireos; (4) there was the appearance of a dark eye line behind the eye; (5) in good light, the legs appeared to be dark blue (rather than black); (6) there was only one visible white wing bar; (7) yellow wash extended from the sides down to the flanks and across the vent with the yellow brightest underneath; (8) the bill was very small and somewhat pale-ish (but nevertheless distinctly a vireo bill); (9) the incessant movements of this bird far exceeded the norm for White-eyed or indeed most other vireos; and (10) the bird that this resembled most -- in all aspects -- was not a White-eyed Vireo but a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. In my opinion, all these characters clearly add up to Bell's Vireo!

The Bell's Vireo was not the only bird of the day. There were flycatchers (Eastern Phoebe, Eastern Pewee and Great Crested Flycatcher), a few other warblers (N Parula, Common Yellowthroat), a few raptors (Merlin, N Harrier and, of course, Osprey). But Bell's Vireo goes right to the top of the bird list for Weesuck Creek!

Eric Salzman

a remarkable sighting

My regular morning round takes me onto the dock that juts out into Weesuck Creek just beyond the outflow from our marsh and pond. From here, there is a clear view of the creek's west shoreline up to Aldrich Boatyard. As I was scanning the area, my eye caught a Snowy Egret in the mud (it was dead low tide) just below the bulkhead at the end of Weeksuck Avenue working its way on the flat toward the boatyard. The bird had two (maybe three) long streaming plumes coming down from the back of its head to its back. That got my attention. Snowy Egrets do not have long white plumes.

I quickly started to head over there for a closer look but, almost immediately, the bird took off. I watched it fly out and the, swinging past the dock, down the creek. It was a good-sized bird (bigger than the average Snowy) with a good-sized thick black bill that had a lot of yellow at its base continuing yellow onto the lores. In flight, in bright sunshire, I could see its jet black legs, brightly contrasting yellow feet and, yes, streaming white plumes. To repeat, Snowy Egrets do not have long white plumes. LITTLE EGRETS have long white plumes. As I watched, it flew out to the mouth of the creek and around the end of Pine Neck.

This is the second time I have seen a LITTLE EGRET (Egretta garzetta) here. The first time was on April 25, 1999 when a bird appeared briefly on our marsh (another one was seen on the same day in Delaware). Little Egret is widespread in Europe, Africa and Asia and I have seen it in often in Europe (and also Africa). This bird is NOT on the official New York list. The bird I saw in 1999 was not photographed and I was the only one to see it and that's not considered good enough to add a new bird to the state list.

Doubters of the 1999 bird insisted that Snowy Egrets can sometimes have the long plumes. Well, maybe. Such birds are probably Little/Snowy hybrids anyway. Also, as the doubters did not point out, Reef Heron is also a possibility; the three form a superspecies. Of course, these possibilities cannot be entirely ruled out. It is highly likely that many (accepted) rare bird sightings involve hybrids as the introgression of hybrid genes does not always produce visible evidence. If you could get a feather you could, I suppose, do DNA analysis. How much introgression do you need before the bird stops being a species and starts being a hybrid?

In any case, the likelihood that the bird is a Little Egret is probably at least as good as its being a hybrid, let alone a Reef Heron! All the East Coast states have accepted records of Little Egret which has colonized Barbados and occurs regularly from South America to Canada (whether hybrids or pure Egretta garzetta is not known in most cases)! Why not New York State?

At any rate, I have a bird on my local list which is not on the New York State list -- and now twice!

Eric Salzman