Hooded Warbler this morning

Magnolia Warbler, UMASS, Amherst, MA, May 16, 2025

No photos of the Hooded Warbler unfortunately... 

While I was on my way to run some errands I saw a post from Aaron from UMASS saying the birding group of students had a Hooded Warbler on the northwest side of campus so I made sure I had a bit of time to try for it and headed in the direction of the campus.  I knew it was graduation weekend and the doctoral degrees were being awarded during the morning but I figured I was early enough to beat the crowds and came in the backside of the campus.  I arrived on campus and started the short walk out to the area where the bird was reported and arrived to find a Magnolia Warbler singing strongly and sounding a lot like a Hooded Warbler (I even tried an experiment with the often fallible Merlin app and it suggested both species as possibly making the song).  I thought perhaps the original observers had mistaken the Magnolia Warbler for a Hooded Warbler but given that they usually get their identifications correct I was still hopeful.  Steve arrived and we discussed the bird and decided to give it another try.  After awhile of listening to the Magnolia Warbler (as well as lots of other birds) we started walking out and then heard the Hooded Warbler fairly close.  Despite being so close we could never get a look at it as it moved through the woods.  It would go silent for periods and then start singing again.  I at least was able to get some recordings.  More birders arrived (including the original observers) and we continued to intermittently hear the bird singing.  After trying multiple vantage points I finally got a few second view of the bird in the upper part of a 75 foot tree and then it promptly disappeared.  A very frustrating bird to try to see for sure.  Nonetheless it was very nice to see the species in the county again.  This was my third UMASS record for the species, with the other records on the once very productive Orchard Hill on May 4, 2015 and May 16, 2018.  The species is slightly less than annual in county and I suspect they have bred a few times.  It was a decent warbler day overall even without being able to be out as much as usual and I finished with 23 species.  The Hooded Warbler becomes warbler species #29 for the county so far this year.