Friday, June 29, 2012

Song of the Common Yellowthroat

I was going through my bird song recordings from this spring and ran across a great recording of a common yellowthroat from my last walk at Nahanton. While there are two other warblers in the recordings, the common yellowthroat takes center stage.

I was in the lower gardens and spent about 15 minutes trying in vain to get a recording of the ovenbird when I grew frustrated and chose to move on. In the far corner of the gardens the rolling "witchity-witchity-witchity" alerted me to the common yellowthroat. He was hiding deep in the tangled woods and brush, but his voice was loud and clear. So I caught this recording and then tried to "pish" him out into the open. I generally dislike disturbing birds, so I try to "pish" only on occasion and never play recorded songs to lure birds in. He popped up and I got some great recordings, but unfortunately he behaved like a typical warbler flitting from branch to branch making it very hard to get a picture. I know that the yellow warblers breed in Newton, but I'm pretty sure that common yellowthroats do as well, given their sightings during the warmer months. They tend to love wet thickets and grassy areas and like to stay in the underbrush. As our second most common warbler, they are a familiar sight at Nahanton and the males thick black mask and yellow throat makes him instantly recognizable.



Ironically, I later realized that the ovenbird I was trying to record before actually gave a few of his "teacher-teacher-teacher" notes at 7 and 45 second marks. Also yellow warblers are hear throughout the background.

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