"Late yesterday evening, (6/22), Glenda and I went to Crockery Creek Natural Area to try once again to get a decent photograph of a Blue-winged Warbler. Although the mosquitoes ate us alive, I finally got a pretty good picture. It was near dark, so I'm surprised it came out as well as it did."
- Ken Sapkowski
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3 comments:
That's a very interesting photo. Perhaps it's an artifact of the lighting, but the bird's back and nape are as blue as the wings. It also seems to have a fair amount of white along the throat and flanks. If the bird looked that way in life, it looks like a Brewster's warbler (blue-winged/golden-winged hybrid).
I had the same thought, Matt. Even though the wingbars are white and not joined into a patch, there seems to be too much white along the flanks and lower face for a pure Blue-winged, and I agree the back and nape look like the Golden-winged condition. Neat bird!
My understanding is that as Brewster's cross-back with blue-winged the progeny look more like blue-winged with each generation until they become indistinguishable. This bird does have a lot of white, so maybe it's 1/4 or 1/8 golden-winged? I'll send Rick another photo from the same area that also shows a little white, (if you can trust the light).
If you search "blue-winged warbler" on Flicker it comes up with a lot of interesting photos of crosses.
We went down to Kalamazoo Nature Center a few weeks ago and saw the Lawrence's warbler that was posted on the Michigan Lister's sight. I suppose the same thing happens to them if they cross-back enough times with bw's. Ken
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