fairy-wren: Audubon’s Warbler. Photo by sambobbing As…
Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013
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. :-)
Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/51131328167.
