Friday, September 17, 2021

Unusually plumaged warblers today

Northern Parula with light colored head, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Sep 17, 2021
Northern Parula with light colored head, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Sep 17, 2021
Northern Parula with light colored head, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Sep 17, 2021
Northern Parula with light colored head, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Sep 17, 2021
Northern Parula with light colored head, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Sep 17, 2021
Northern Parula with light colored head, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Sep 17, 2021
Northern Parula with light colored head, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Sep 17, 2021
Northern Parula with light colored head, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Sep 17, 2021

A fun part of going through mixed flocks of warblers is finding oddly plumaged individuals and today I had two among the warblers at Arcadia.  Overall the morning was fairly quiet until I ran across a large mixed flock around nine and then it was crazy for a bit and this group had the oddest looking Northern Parula I have seen.  As soon as I looked at it through binoculars I could see it looked odd with a very light yellowish hue to its head.  I snapped off a number of photos before I lost track of it among the flock.  It was a really cool looking individual to say the least.

Common Yellowthroat with a few white feathers, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Sep 17, 2021
Common Yellowthroat with a few white feathers, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Sep 17, 2021

The other slightly oddly plumaged warbler was a Common Yellowthroat that had a few white spots on various parts of its body with the most obvious white mark being on its head. More photos of variously oddly plumaged warblers, as well as hybrid warblers, can be found at the following Flickr album link.

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