Pine Warbler?

[Dinusaur]

Is it a pine warbler? Couldn't get any better shot than this. The white wing bar is a bit washed out - may be the angle of the shot; not sure. Found him briefly today at the wet-wood section of Leslie Spit. I also saw may be 4 separate yellow-rumped warbler in the same area. One of them was gracious enough to let me get a good shot.

[Bluffs Birder]

Hi Dinusaur,

Did you happen to notice the bird flicking it's tail at all?  What you've captured here is a Palm Warbler.

If you look at the base of the tail, called the 'undertail coverts', the overall colouring is yellow.  The tail feathers themselves start off with a band of black colouring followed by a large area of white.  This is diagnostic of Palm Warblers.  No other Warbler has this pattern.  Also note the yellow throat and the faint streaking on the breast.  Although fairly difficult in this photo, you can see a slight bit of the brown colouring on the top of the bird's head.  Most of these points are best viewed using your largest flickr page photo.  Why I asked about the tail flicking was because that is also a good indicator that you have a 'Palm'.  You have some wonderful photos in you collection by-the-way.

Happy Birding!
Walter

[Dinusaur]

Thanks Walter for such a nice and detailed explanation. To be honest I didn't pay too much attention to its tail wagging part - it was moving from branch to branch quite fast and not standing still to notice anything in particular. Here's another equally bad image; however, in this one you could see a white ring below the eye and also a dark shadow right underneath.

[Bluffs Birder]

Hi Dinusaur,

In your first photo you can also see a bit of the 'broken' eye-ring of this bird.  The dark feathers under the eye are part of it's spring plumage and on it's return in the fall will be lighter in colour, as will the rest of the bird's feathers.

Walter