Collection of Yellow-throated Warblers (Dendroica dominica) in Northwest Alabama with Abnormal Plumage

Published in 2007

At around 0930 hours on the morning of 9 April 2006, Bruce Hitch and I were in the Bankhead National Forest in Lawrence County, Alabama, collecting Yellow- throated Warblers (Dendroica dominica) for my thesis research at Auburn University. I was using Yellow-throated Warbler song playback to lure the warblers down from the canopy, when I noticed a responsive individual that I could not immediately identify. Though it was clearly aggressive to my playback, had a mannerism suggestive of a Yellow-throated Warbler, and eventually sang a normal Yellow-throated Warbler song, the bird had a very dark throat. I thought of ÒSuttonÕsÓ Warbler, a rare Yellow-throated Warbler/Northern Parula (Parula americana) hybrid described as having the burnt-orange throat, green back, and unstreaked flanks of a Northern Parula, but the tail and facial pattern of a Yellow-throated Warbler (C. W. Carlson, Atlantic Naturalist 34:1-11, 1981).


Author: Bailey D. McKay
Volume Number: 53 Year Published: 2007
Issue Number: 1
Page Number: 1

Link to article: http://birdlife.aosbirds.org/2007/Vol 53 No. 1_2007_p1-3.pdf
Link to the full issue of BirdLife: http://birdlife.aosbirds.org/2007/Vol 53 No.1_2007.pdf