Hey everyone it's Bobby from LycoBirds with another spring warbler warm-up video and this one
is going to cover Pine Warbler. And this one can be a bit tricky at times; it's definitely one you
want to use multiple field marks and kind of structural clues and stuff like that. But in
general they have a fairly large bill. By warbler standards this is pretty large and fairly heavy.
The overall plumage... the bright ones are pretty yellow in the head and the chest area, and then
kind of turns to more of a white color as you get down towards the belly and the undertail coverts.
But actually the drab ones can just be like grayish and basically lack yellow altogether and
so that's something to keep an eye out for. You have a whole spectrum from gray to yellow birds
and that's something to be aware of. The cheeks are typically going to be a bit darker
compared to the neck area. You can kind of see this contrast here,
and you can kind of see that on this bird, although it's not in the best light. But even with
a poor view like this, you can still see there's a pretty significant contrast here. There's also...
typically on the face, you have kind of a weak eye line and eye arcs, and depending
on the the plumage of the bird oftentimes it's the more drab ones that that stands out more
on. And you can see it almost makes it look like they're wearing goggles or something like that.
So yeah that's the facial pattern. And in terms of the underside pattern,
the streaking - if it's present on the front - is going to be pretty indistinct and
generally it looks more just like texture than actual streaking. And you can see on this more
drab bird you can see the streaking a little bit better. But in general it's pretty indistinctive.
And Pine Warblers also have wing bars here; that's definitely something to keep an eye out for
because there's some similar species that don't have wing bars. And then just in terms of the
structure, the wing projection is pretty short compared to the long tail and you can just see
how long the tail is from this angle. This isn't the best angle. But on this one you can really
see it too. They do have quite long tails, and oftentimes the tail looks notched like this if
they're holding it loosely, which they often do. Almost looks like a finch or something with that
strong notch. And Pine Warblers are actually one of the few warbler species that you might see
at your feeder. They do come into suet feeders and I would say it's one of the few species that
you would expect to visit a feeder under normal circumstances. You know,
if they're just passing through they could stop at the feeder. Typically there's not going to be too
many other warbler species that would do that - maybe in unusual circumstances one might show up,
but Pine Warblers do it with some regularity.
And in terms of similar species Yellow-throated Vireo is probably the most similar plumage-wise,
so you're not even comparing a warbler to another warbler, so separating those is kind of... you
would use the basic structural differences between vireos and warblers kind of as a whole so....
Vireos have more of a stocky build than warblers do and also typically have a
heavier bill and the bill also you can see here has a little bit of a hook on it
and warblers don't have a hook on the bill. Now that can be a little tricky to see
but generally you do get an impression that it's like a stockier, heavier bird with a vireo like
this. And also the legs on vireos are just kind of this gray color and Pine Warblers especially often
show kind of paler legs so that's another way to help separate them. And then in terms of warblers,
if I run through a couple of the predominantly yellow ones... you have Palm Warbler. I just did
a whole video on Palm Warbler so I'll link that in the description if you want to check that out,
but you have this rufous cap and then there's kind of rufous streaking on the front typically
and then the undertail coverts are going to be yellow on a Palm Warbler so pretty straightforward
to separate that from Pine Warbler. And then you have Yellow Warbler. Again, this is a very
yellow bird overall: yellow undertail, yellow undertail coverts, oftentimes they'll have kind of
reddish streaking on the front, and then the face is just a solid yellow color with just the eye
with no other pattern. And Prairie Warbler: Prairie Warblers are typically going to have
stronger streaking in the sides and then some finer detail in the face not just kind of the
indistinct dark cheek. And Prothonotary Warblers may be the most similar in terms of plumage,
but you can see again just like yellow warbler it's kind of a plain yellow
face with just the black eye and the wings don't have wing bars on prothonotary warbler
and i would say the wings contrast more on Prothonotary Warbler as well. So definitely one
to be careful with when you're IDing them but if you use kind of the field marks I just mentioned
Pine Warblers are pretty straightforward it's not an impossible ID if you use the structural
clues and just are aware of the variations in plumage. So, if you found this helpful please
like and subscribe for more videos like this. Thanks for watching and I will see you next time.