BIRDING TO THE EDG

Last week I visited the San Diego Birding Festival in hopes to show off our new Nikon EDG binoculars to our California friends. Of, course west coast birding rivals some of the best birding in the USA if not, the world. I will be sure to post more on the festival later this week, but for now I want to focus on the highlight of the trip for many of the birders at the festival.

It is always nice to see a life bird on one of these trips but a life subspecies sometimes is even better. Throughout my travels in the tropics I have spent many days birding in mangrove swamps without seeing the beautiful mangrove race of the Yellow Warbler. A birder had spotted this guy a while back. Believe it or not, his father lives in the apartment complex right across the street. It just so happens that it has been hanging around a couple of dumpsters near Marina Village. Go figure!

It took only about ten minutes for this one to pop-up, however, it was difficult to get it out of the bush entirely. It really enjoyed burying itself back in there.

Given the tropical nature from which this bird comes from they tend to produce more young and breed more often than their northern cousins. Yellow Warbler's song changes clinally throughout it's distribution, but there was an extra harder chip in the middle of this one's song, for what its worth. I would usually expect the Yellow Warbler's song to be sweet throughout.


This bird had significantly less streaking ventrally than most Yellow Warblers I notice. Furthermore, the streaking was restricted mainly to the flanks. Other than that, it is just the rufous head that separates this subspecies along with range and habitat. The rufous on the head can vary as well being that they have a relatively large range from southern North America through northern South America including some of the Caribbean. Don't read into it too much though because mangrove swamps are some of the most endangered habitats we have and they are being ripped out of the ground for condominiums and duplexes all over the Western Hemisphere.

As for the Yellow Warbler species itself; it is a fairly large warbler what breeds in riparian habitats all over the United States. It has a large, straight black bill and has a large black eye that really pops out at you. Breeding males will show quite a bit of vertical ventral rufous streaking during breeding season and afterwards the rufous fades a bit.


Here we have Ben Lizdas from Eagle Optics on the left and Marci Fuller from the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival on the right enjoying the view of the Mangrove Warbler and the dumpsters.

Thanks for reading and be sure to check back for more San Diego posts later this week and next week. Good Birding!