This Yellow Warbler (Dendroica petechia) was singing repeatedly while foraging in a salmonberry thicket along Lincoln Street early in the morning on 24 May 2010.

Yellow Warbler Singing

Recently I have been asking people if they have seen any Yellow Warblers this spring. While not an especially common species along the road system in Sitka (mostly due to lack of preferred habitat, I suspect), in many years they are show up around the first week of May. However, this year there I had heard of no reports, so I was curious if there were any around.

Early this morning I went for a walk around the neighborhood and heard a bird singing. I thought it might be a Yellow Warbler, though I am not so familiar with their song that I easily remember it, especially the first time I hear it each spring. The bird was moving around in a dense salmonberry thicket. From time to time I could see movement through the branches and leaves, but I was not able to get a good look. Eventually I was able to get the photo above in the brief moment it was partially visible through the leaves. Until I was able to look at the picture more closely, I wasn’t confident that it was a Yellow Wabler, but the look of its face and the streaks on its breast clinched it for me.

Yesterday I saw 3 Northern Pintails, 6 smaller dabblers (I thought Green-winged Teal at the time, though they may have been Northern Shovelers), at least 4 Caspian Terns (including a hatch-year bird), many Thayer’s Gulls, Mew Gulls, a handful of Herring Gulls, Glaucous-winged Gulls, and a couple of Black-legged Kittiwakes. 5 or so White-winged Scoters did a fly by and there were at least 40 phalaropes out on Crescent Bay in two or three flocks that I saw. Shorebirds included Least Sandpipers, Black Turnstones, a Ruddy Turnstone, and what I intially thought might be a Wandering Tattler, but now wonder if it might have been a Spotted Sandpiper.

Last night I heard the terns flying over the neighborhood.

Today there were 8 Northern Shovelers, 10 or so Black Turnstones, a Ruddy Turnstone, at least 5 Least Sandpipers, a Western Sandpiper, Spotted Sandpiper, many gulls; I noted Mew, Herring, Glaucous-winged, and Thayer’s. Ravens and Bald Eagles, and a couple of warblers in the alders along the beach. The warblers were very yellow and the one I got a good look at had a hint of streaking on the breast, so I’m thinking Yellow Warblers.