[SBB] Hooded Warbler

["Garth Harwood" <[[email protected]]>]

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	, "pen-bird" <[[email protected]]>
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This morning 6/2/2005 from 9:45-10AM I had a singing Hooded Warbler at the
intersection of Page Mill Rd. and Skyline Blvd. (Hwy 35). It was precisely
on the Santa Clara/San Mateo county line at the peak of the small hill at
the NE side of that junction. Unfortunately this is a voice-only ID as a jay
chased the bird off from cover just as I closed in on it. All I could
ascertain visually was that it was "warbler-sized", closer in size to a
chickadee than to a sparrow. I listened to it from as close as 30 ft. but
the bird kept to dense cover until the jay intervened.

Lacking strong visual evidence, I would hesitate to call this bird to
species except that the auditory evidence was so clear. I heard the bird
sing at least 40-50 times, at times as frequently as once every 10 seconds.
The song was loud and clear and never varied. The entire song was of a
piece, (all of the notes warbled together musically). A series of 3 pairs of
pure, clear, loud rising then falling notes was followed by a 2-note
sign-off in the same tone but with an emphatic quality to the final pair of
notes, which did not follow the rising-and-falling pattern but rather
dropped from the first to the second. Pitch was slurred but generally in the
high range. The tempo of the song was relatively slow for a warbler.
Although a Black-throated Gray Warbler sang nearby the HOWA song was totally
different, lacking the slight buzzy or burry quality of all BTGW song
variants. The other nearby warbler, Orange-crowned, has no similarity of
voice at all with this song. There are also Wilson's Warblers in the general
area but, although closely related to HOWA, their song is also far different
- harsher and lower pitched, and rarely having any hint of musicality.

I had the feeling the bird was still around when I left at 10:05 AM, as I
was still hearing a dry chip (but this could possibly have been the BTGW).
Although I felt right away that this bird was probably a Hooded Warbler, I
had to wait until after work to review all North American warbler songs on
my CDs for any possible source of confusion. Now that I have my conclusion
is confident that a Hooded Warbler was present on the ridgeline this
morning.

--Garth Harwood

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