anonsally:

lies:

fairy-wren:

Audubon’s Warbler. Photo by sambobbing

As promised! (Technically a Yellow-rumped, these days, at least for species-level listing purposes.)

I remember that I was happy when the Audubon’s and Myrtle Warbler were combined (which some research shows me happened back in 1973, when I would have been 11 and just starting to get serious about bird-watching). I didn’t really like the name (Yellow-rumped sounded a little outré to me), and it was a lost species for the listing count, but I liked not having to worry about which of the two I was seeing. For a common species like the Yellow-rumped, I was all about the ID: list it and move on to something more exciting.

These days I’m more interested in both the finer points of identification and appreciating the common species, such that I pay more attention to the throats and auriculars of the Yellow-rumped Warblers I see to look for the stray Myrtle’s. In So Cal they’re almost always Audubon’s, but a guy can hope.

I see from the aforementioned googling that there’s actually been some recent talk at the AOU of splitting them again. That’d be cool. In the meantime I’m going to pay more attention to them, just because Sally likes them. :-)

This is just such a beautiful little bird. It looks different from the last one John posted. I think the other one was a Myrtle’s?

And now I wonder about these two different groups of Yellow-Rumped Warblers. Like they are two rival cliques in middle school (apparently junior high school no longer exists? at least not in my city), and the Myrtle’s Warblers call the Audubon’s Warblers “Butternecks” and the Audubons call  the Myrtles “Snowthroats” and the only time they get along is when the purple finches come calling both groups “Butterbutts”. Then they join forces to make fun of the purple finches for being red instead of purple.

Oh wow; that’s hilarious.

Yes, that earlier one was a Myrtle, with the cream-colored throat. The information at Flickr indicates he was photographed in Chicago, which makes sense; the eastern population is mostly Myrtles. From the Rockies westward they’re mostly Audubon’s, like this guy.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/51191673305.

This entry was posted by jbc on Thursday, May 23rd, 2013 at 5:40 pm and is filed under Tumblr. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.