Hey Tweets,
I was over at Manchester State Park near Port Orchard on sunday, and was viciously attacked by an Orange-crowned Warbler!

I heard a warbler calling up above me on the hill, but becasue it is early in the season, I could not recall for sure what species it was. So I pulled out the IPod and cranked up the OC Warbler call (my best guess).
It played thru about one round of calls (by which time I was sure it was an OC), and this Warbler BLASTED down from the trees above and whipped past wihtin inches of my head!
Before I could turn off the IPod, it had come around again to land right in front of me.
I quickly turned off the calls, and the warbler was sitting in a bush about 2 feet from me, mouth agape, ready to tear its rival to little tiny warbler pieces.
I stood perfectly still and watched for a couple of seconds.
Then I did a naughty thing. I decided to play another quick snippet to see what it would do.
So without otherwise moving, I clicked the play button again....

Within the first couple of notes, the warbler rocketed right past the IPod in my hand. I thought he was going to take my arm off! ;)

OK, enough was enough, and I did NOT play it again.

I've not been attacked as viciously since the Northern Beardless Tyranulet incident in Arizona ...

While a humorous story, this does remind me to exercise some restraint when playing bird calls during breeding season. While getting this reaction once probably will not cause the bird undue stress, repeated playings could possibly over-stress this bird.

But it WAS Cool to see the testosterone-amped Warbler in action ;)

Guy McWethy
Renton, WA
mailto: lguy_mcw at yahoo.com