Hi Judd,
Interesting bird. Some of these birds are quite difficult to ID to
subspecies. I believe that this bird is a Western Palm Warbler. There is a
large amount of variation in both Western and Yellow Palm Warblers and the
extent of yellow on the underparts is particularly variable in spring. A
fair number of Western Palm Warblers are this yellow below. I would look
more at the color of the nape and wings, which would be more strongly olive
in Yellow Palm Warbler. The back of the auricular should be more yellowish,
or at the very least a bit more olive. Yellow Palms also should show more
extensive chestnut streaking on the sides of the breast (versus the
brownish streaking on this bird).
I will let someone more well-versed in MN distribution comment on the
number of records, but I think you were certainly correct to get photos of
this bird. I would think a Yellow Palm Warbler would be exceptional in
Minnesota given the breeding range, and would probably best be documented
with photos.
Cool bird. Thanks for posting. It's great to have people looking so
critically at these.
Best
Chris Wood
eBird Neotropical Birds Project Leader
Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York
http://ebird.org
http://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu
On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 12:40 PM, Judd Zandstra ju...@comcast.net wrote:
I'm not sure if this sighting is unusual of not. According to eBird there
have been no sightings in Minnesota and MOU doesn't list this subspecies
separately. Guides I consulted give the yellow subspecies range as eastern
US and Canada. The Western/Brown subspecies is pretty common but would
this be unusual in Minnesota?
Photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/**juddz/7144938059/http://www.flickr.com/photos/juddz/7144938059/
Judd Zandstra
Shoreview, Ramsey County, MN
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