Tuesday, May 20, 2014

She’s on Fire: Mary Lou Finds a Prothonotary Warbler!


Prothonotary Warbler
 After a weekend away from email, I was stunned to see that Mary Lou reported a Prothonotary Warbler Sunday morning at Nahanton Park. This is the second time this spring that Mary Lou has found a new bird for Nahanton Park, previously it was the Yellow-throated Warbler. The Prothonotary Warbler typically inhabits more southern swamp lands, so to have one visit us wonderful.


Monday morning, I decided to try for the Prothonotary as it would be a life bird. When I arrived, I tallied birds as I walked from the Winchester St. entrance towards the river. But the Yellow Warblers, CommonYellowthroats, and American Redstarts couldn’t keep me long. I was on a mission.

Prothonotary Warbler
When I arrived the river, the first people I ran into were Haynes and Pete, fresh from their own sightings of the Prothonotary. Buoyed by the good news, I set off down Florrie’s Path straining my ears to try and catch the loud ringing “sweet sweet sweet” song repeated on one pitch. Another birder, and walked the path looking for motion and listening intently. I started to hear a two-parted song, with the first few notes at a lower pitch, before rising into a decisive “sweet sweet”.  It almost ended like a Prothonotary, but not having heard one sing before, I couldn’t be sure. But as it was the only song we couldn’t recognize we started scanning the far bank for this bright yellow bird.

Prothonotary Warbler
A long story short, a number of us birders banded together to examine the trail on the other side of the river where we were finally able to see that the singer was indeed a Prothonotary! After it returned to the Nahanton side of the river, I headed back over and was eventually rewarded with some better views, though a decent photograph was elusive. In all the excitement, a Canada Warbler was summarily dismissed after a few seconds by the birders present. The Prothonotary was singing so energetically he must have been trying to attract a female, but he is the only Prothonotary Warbler sighted for more than a hundred miles.

So while its fantastic for us that we get to experience him, I do wonder what happens to these wayward migrants. Do they eventually realize they aren’t in the right place and then fly back south? Is he going to hang out up north going bust on this year’s breeding season and hit the reset button when he migrates south for winter? Or is there another possibility that I haven’t thought of? If only his “sweet sweet sweet” song could tell us.

3 comments:

  1. This is actually not a new bird for Nahanton - not even for Florrie's Path. I have to look through my records for the exact date, but about ten years ago one showed up exactly there, and was seen by many people. The song of this bird certainly is strange. Fay Vale suggested that even if there were females available, they wouldn't be interested in this bird....

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  2. Matt, I'm so glad you got some documentation. Mary Lou told me about it on Sunday, and I hadn't had a chance to write on the blog, so I'm really happy you did! Thanks!

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  3. Haynes, I'm impressed with your birding notes. I don't think without eBird I would have been one to take notes, but now that I'm collecting "data" and eBird give so many stats, I'm hooked. That is an interesting point about his odd song and ability to attract a female. It makes me wonder if there his song is really unique, or if he learned a dialect from somewhere. If I have time maybe I'll listen to prothonotary warblers on xeno-canto to see if anyone else sounds like our Prothonotary.

    Suzette, I was watching the blog thinking you might have beat me to the punch if you were birding on Sunday. I wish I had more time to spend down there to try and get some better pictures. But hopefully he will stick around for a while and we'll have more opportunites.

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