Lawrence's Warbler, Belchertown, MA, May 27, 2022
Lawrence's Warbler, Belchertown, MA, May 27, 2022
Lawrence's Warbler, Belchertown, MA, May 27, 2022
Lawrence's Warbler, Belchertown, MA, May 27, 2022
Lawrence's Warbler, Belchertown, MA, May 27, 2022
After another fruitless search this morning for a Hooded Warbler in Hampshire County for the year I headed home to take Wilson for a walk. While we were out on our walk I heard a Blue winged Warbler song and tried to track it down but had no luck. As the area I heard it in produced a Lawrence's Warbler back in 2012 I decided to head back to the same area after dropping Wilson off. I try to track down every bird that sounds anything like a Blue winged Warbler as you never know what will be singing and I have found many interesting birds over the years. I returned with the camera and more time to look and I quickly found the bird...a Lawrence's Warbler! I managed to get some photos to compare it to the continued Lawrence's Warbler I have had for the last few weeks elsewhere in town. Very cool to find one in almost the exact same spot I had one ten years ago.
Lawrence's Warbler, Belchertown, MA, May 7, 2022
Lawrence's Warbler, Belchertown, MA, May 7, 2022
After seeing the first Lawrence's Warbler I headed over to the area where another has been present since at least
May 7th and I started searching for it. It has grown much quieter and harder to find as it has apparently settled down to nest with an apparent Blue winged x Golden winged Warbler hybrid (mainly Blue winged Warbler in appearance except for yellow wing bars). After a lot of searching and waiting I got a brief glimpse of it but could not get photos of it today. I have included some photos from previous visits and you can see some subtle difference in the plumage compared to the other individual. I will keep an eye on both Lawrence's Warblers over the next few weeks to see if they stick around and if I'm able to confirm nesting. This is the first year I have ever had two individual Lawrence's Warbler in the county and to have both on the same day in the same town is really impressive as this hybrid is quite unusual.
I have had the following sightings of Lawrence's Warbler in Hampshire County during my years of birding here:
4/29/09 Covey WMA, Belchertown
5/14/12 Belchertown
5/13/17 Mineral Hills Conservation Area, Northampton
5/5/20-7/1/20 Belchertown
5/3/21-6/721 Belchertown
5/7/22-? Belchertown (individual #1)
5/27/22-? Belchertown (individual #2)
I'm not quite sure why Belchertown is such a hot spot for Lawrence's Warbler but it is nice to have them close to home. Perhaps there is an unknown Golden winged Warbler nesting nearby with a Blue winged Warbler and producing the various hybrids. Golden winged Warblers have become so rare in the state they are now a review species and there are typically only a handful of records a year. The last one in the county was one I found back in
2017 at the very end of May.
Blue winged Warbler, Lawrence's Swamp, Amherst, MA, May 27, 2022
I also ran across a very interesting sounding Blue winged Warbler this morning in Amherst. The bird was singing a very Golden winged Warbler like song and I had hopes that once I tracked down the bird I would find something beyond a typical Blue winged Warbler but that was not to be the case. The eBird list has a handful of recordings.
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