Breaking News: Yellow-throated Warbler Seen!

Yellow-throated Warbler

  4/25 Update
I woke up early hoping to take another crack a the Yellow-throated Warbler and so I arrived at the park at 7:30am (checklist). Right off the bat I found the lingering American Tree Sparrow associating with a Chipping Sparrow foraging in the grass. I made straight for the path by the pond and though I heard a warbler singing, but only found a Palm Warbler. For the next hour I walked and the path by the woods occasionally venturing over the Woodcock Meadow or Florrie's path.

I kept thinking I was hearing a warbler song occasionally from path between the woods and soccer field, but couldn't find anything, which was maddening as it sounded like it could be the Yellow-throated Warbler song. At 8:30 I finally connected the song with a bird flitting around high in the tree tops 30-50 meters in the woods behind the pond. It took only 5 seconds after I had the bird in my binoculars to make the ID as Yellow-throated Warbler! A very distinctive bird with a bright yellow throat with bold black and white facial markings. I eventually managed to get a record shot (I've never been so proud of a pixelated bird picture before) though I missed a great opportunity for a better shot when he came out close to the circle drive by the soccer field entrance. I unfortunately was trying to record his song and didn't have my camera ready. If you would like a better picture check out Ryan's picture here at his Flickr page.

Palm Warbler (Yellow)

It was quite a relief to find the bird after no sightings were reported since Wednesday at around 5:10pm. Maybe I was right and he was laying low yesterday during the wind. Or maybe I just got lucky. Anyway I'll include a few other pictures from today too.


4/24 Update
I went last night to try and find the bird and when I pulled up another birder said it had been seen 30 minutes ago in the wood behind the pond, off of the trail between the pond and fields. But even with 4 other birders looking, we had no luck finding the Yellow-throated Warbler. One guy there said he had seen the bird on Tuesday night, so it spent atleast one night at Nahanton And today so far I've seen 4 eBird checklists that haven't seen the bird either, so hopefully the bird is just laying low during the wind today. (checklist)

Brown-headed Cowbird

The original post from 4/23 is below:
I just saw a BostonBirds email from Mary Lou saying that she had seen a Yellow-throated Warbler up in the oaks between the pond and soccer fields. What an excellent find! Yellow-thrated Warblers usually don't make it this far North.

I'm visiting the mid-atlantic region in a few weeks and Yellow-throated Warbler is high on my to see list, it would be so much cooler to find it here in Newton. I missed the bird last year up by Forest Grove Reservation that was found by Jane.  If I can steal away for a few minutes I'll see if I can stop by this evening to try for this bird.

Update: I just heard that Haynes and a couple other birders refound the bird at at about 9:30am