I do thoroughly enjoy a good advocacy based discussion on the merits of different proposed IDs for obscure little puzzle birds, and Luke, if your chosen battleground this time around (er, I mean discussion perspective) is to elucidate for Alex and I as to just why it is this short-tailed gray bird with no wing bars is a Pine Warbler, then I eagerly await your reply! :bounce:
Like Alex as well, the first couple times I looked at it, I had to pass, I was sure it was no Pine Warbler (in my opinion), but had no idea what it was. Then I got to thinking about obscure drab gray backed birds with yellow up front, eventually thought to look very carefully at the rump, and things got interesting. Particularly, as with every characteristic I looked at in closer detail, Cape May was reinforced (imo), and Pine had further difficulties, just 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15. Fun!
So, to respond to Luke's points, while I await enlightenment as to the case for Pine in his next post (
),
1. I don't like the bill either, like I said. All I can say is that we have all seen familiar birds look strange in some circumstances, and I have to assume the effect of the rain on the poor little bird makes the bill look strange compared to our usual head frame of reference.
2. When tracking down obscure little birds high ahead as they dart in and out of foliage, trying to narrow down the species, one of the things I appreciate about Cape Mays is something they have that most streaked warblers don't: ventral streaking. To my eye, the bird does look "obscurely streaked" with "blurry" little low contrast streaks, which is what you want in a hatch year female. What is even most interesting is the streaking looks darkest right at the ventral area (look at the middle photo in particular), which is perfect for Cape May but wrong for most warblers, including Pine.
3. Hatch year females can have particularly dull and greenish rump coloration, and the lighting and angle aren't great -- I just know that I distinctly see some yellow/green amongst the gray right at the rump.
4. I phrased my observation poorly on the neck coloring, you are correct that both species are characterized by light yellowish necks contrasting with dark auriculars. However, with Cape May female it a strong
contrast between gray auriculars and broad white yellow band then gray mantle -- like this bird. Pine is subtler, olive / pale greenish yellow / olive. Do you really want to say that dark gray / yellow / dark gray is Pine?
5. I don't like the head either, but I think the feathers being plastered down does make the usual jizz comparisons suspect.
(thanks for the kind words, Miedin!)