Tweets,



For what it?s worth, Brien Meilleur, Grace and Ollie Oliver, and I studied a
weird MacGillivray?s-like warbler this morning about 8-9 AM on the south
edge of Duvall, King County. We first heard it from the Snoqualmie Valley
trail about ? mile south of McCormick Park in Duvall, got brief glimpses,
then much better scope views (Ollie took some pictures) from an obscure
connecting track between the trail and Highway 212 (accessible from a
commercial driveway west off the highway between Kennedy Rd. and 145th
directly opposite the Subway fanchise).



Basically it looked like a male MacGillivray?s Warbler but with a neatly
defined white throat that shades to grayish, then bright yellow on the
breast. It seemed long in the tail and perhaps a bit washed out overall for
a typical adult male MacG. The bill and leg coloration and proportions were
as in MacGillivray?s but the song was quite unlike any other local warbler
song, a ca. 12 note phrase on an even keel until the final four notes, which
rose and then fell to the base pitch. We played both MacGillivray?s and
Nashville songs but it did not respond to either.



It moved around in a small area of tall wet grass perching and singing
mostly from willows and alders on the meadow margins and from a low hawthorn
bush near the track. There were singing Yellow Warblers and Common
Yellowthroats keeping it company.



If it?s a hybrid we can?t imagine what the other parent could be to provide
the white throat and the weird song. If it?s simply a retarded first-year
male it shows an exceptionally well defined white throat and sings an
unrecognizably MacGillivray?s song.



For those of you with nothing better to do than puzzle over anomalous
individuals, here?s your chance. I hope to get back out to record the song.
Ollie will pass along his best photos when he gets home.



Otherwise we missed all the Stillwater/Duvall target rarities this morning
save the Least Flycatcher chebecking off and on across the pond at the
Stillwater middle access road trail crossing.



Gene Hunn

Lake Forest Park

enhunn323 at comcast.net