Mystery Bird: Orange-crowned Warbler, Vermivora celata

The small size and the way the tail feathers are stacked (as per Paul, the central tail feathers are hidden on top therefore probably a fan-shaped tail) immediately suggest a warbler from the family Parulidae of which at least 50 are recorded for Texas!

I feel confident that the yellow undertail coverts combined with a lack of streaking on the flanks and pinkish/yellowish legs are the give-away marks here, so let's try to key this down...

The Texas warblers with yellowish underparts would include: Prairie, Blue-winged, Orange-crowned, (maybe Tennessee described as having a "yellow tinge" on the underparts), Nashville, Virginia's, Colima, Yellow, Magnolia, Pine, Palm, Prothonotary, Kentucky, Mourning, MacGillivray's, (maybe Common Yellowthroat), Hooded, Wilson's, Golden-crowned, and possibly the rare Grey-crowned Yellowthroat and maybe even an Olive-crowned Yellowthroat (assuming northwards climate change movement as demonstrated by the recent Amazon Kingfisher sighting in Laredo)...

Of those yellow/yellowish under-parts/tail-coverted, I think we can eliminate those with streaks on the flanks- Prairie, Yellow, Magnolia; those with dark legs- Virginia's, Colima, Pine, Palm, Prothonotary; those which would show varying amounts of white- Nashville should show a white belly in between yellow breast and undertail and I think the Tennessee would show more white as would the Common Yellowthroat although this is very variable and perhaps hold the two tropical yellowthroats for the moment...

which leaves us with 8 possibilities: Blue-winged, Orange-crowned, Kentucky, Mourning, MacGillivray's, Hooded, Wilson's, and the Golden-crowned

Well, my first thought was warbler. The unmarked tail rules out the most speciose genus, Dendroica. The tail is too short and squared for a Common Yellowthroat. I'm inclined to go with Vermivora. The olive flanks and undertail coverts lead me to Orange-crowned Warbler (Vermivora celata).

Narrowing down the range further for the Houston area now excludes the two tropical yellowthroats (Grey-crowned and Olive-crowned), MacGillivary's, and the Golden-crowned...

of the 6 remaining, 4 are recorded in Harris County during migration, the Spring migration for which should not yet have started (April?), only leaving us with either the Orange-crowned or Wilson's...

unless I didn't even get the family right and proved I have no sense of warbler migration routes or timing!

Wilson's Warbler

Orange-crowned Warbler

Bird observation maps for the Houston area (Harris County):

Wilson's Warbler- relatively uncommon in February

Orange-crowned Warbler- relatively widespread in February

Hey Michael,

I suspect you are correct but what excludes Wilson's? It too has very similar-colored upperparts, the same tail shape, same leg/feet color, and also yellow undertail coverts...

perhaps the slightly "faded" look to the yellow points to the Orange-crowned but the nuances of light have caught me out before... what about the undersides of the tail feathers themselves? I have seen several photos showing the light color we see above on an Orange-crowned but have yet to see the bottom of a Wilson's...

Paul, do you have a "sweet" note I can add to my guide on this?

another look at a Wislon's

another look at an Orange-crowned

@David

My ID attempt is only a best guess - I'm no authority. As I noted above, the undertail coverts are drab olive - I didn't even consider Wilson's which, I supposed, would be more likely to show yellow undertail coverts.

Thanks Mike,

I do actually agree, although as I said earlier, the nuances of light and photography can be misleading as can be the subspecies coloration:

the nominate, Vermivora celata celata (mostly Canada) is recorded as the dullest and the grayest form while the Pacific coast lutescens is the brightest; off the coast of California, sordida looks the greenest, while orestera (Rocky Mountains and Great Basin) is intermediate... I have no idea which of the various subspecies winters on the Texas Gulf Coast, but variability is an issue...

by the way, this is a relatively pale yellow female Wilson's which is very comparable to this bright Orange-crowned, and this male Wilson's shows the white tail undersides that the Orange-crowned does

Tougher even than it looks, I'm starting to think.

First, I think we can rule out everything but warblers -- but I have to wonder about female Lesser Goldfinch. I think the leg color is sufficient, but I guess I couldn't say 100%. Otherwise, in Texas it pretty much has to be a warbler.

Michael, you're point about the spotless tail feathers is dead on. In fact, that's how I would rule out Yellow -- the chestnut streaks are pretty much limited to adult males in fairly fresh plumage. Well, that and the spot of white at the vent.
That spot of white first made me think of Nashville -- an adult male has not much more white than this. But, there appears to be a problem with leg color -- they should be darker in Nashville, and also in Orange-crowned. In addition, this is on the bright end for an eastern Orange-crowned. Not so much on the undertail coverts, but on the flanks.
I think that the length of the tail relative to the undertail coverts is all wrong for most of the Oporornis, but fairly good for MacGillivray's. I would expect them (and any of the Oporornis) to be brighter yellow, without much variation visible from this view.
Wilson's I would expect to be evenly bright yellow, with an even longer tail and shorter coverts. I'm left, by process of elimination, with Common Yellowthroat. It appears that some fall individuals can show this much yellow on the undersides, with a bit of white present as well. And the leg color is correct, and I can't see any problem with the covert length. Incidentally, Peterson's Warbler guide has 2 pages of warblers viewed from below, from the legs to the tail tip. Surprisingly helpful in the field.

Hi Paul,

Another reason I excluded the Common Yellowthroat was because of the color to the underside of the tail- as I showed above, both the Orange-crowned and Wilson's have light coloring, whereas both the male and female Common Yellowthroats seem to show yellow:

male Common Yellowthroat

female Common Yellowthroat

(by the way, I decided all the vireos were non-starters because they have dark legs)

Managed to find a posterior photo of a Common Yellowthroat- it looks to me that we would expect to see less yellow on the sides and more buff if this were a Common Yellowthroat...

posterior view of male Common Yellowthroat (note buff sides and yellow underside to tail feathers)

Good call, David. I can't find any other evidence for yellow, but what I have argues for definite olive edging to the rectrices, which our bird doesn't show. Like I said -- harder than it looks.
What photos I have of Wilson's show more of a contrast between the tail and the coverts -- the tail seems to look almost black.
Now that I've ruled out every species, I guess the result is clear -- this bird doesn't actually exist!
But if I have to go with something, I'll go back to my first impression and call it Nashville -- with funny colored feet!

Paul,

I too found numerous photos of Wilson's with apparently dark undersides to the feathers but they must simply have been showing shadow (I still think this is more likely an Orange-crowned)... here are a couple more showing the light undersides:

Wilson's 1

Wilson's 2

It seems that you discounted the Orange-crowned because of leg color, but I included it initially for the same reason! My thoughts were that it usually shows a yellowish color as exemplified by the following (Cornell lists the feet of juveniles as "pinkish" and those of adults as "horn"):

Orange-crowned 1

Orange-crwoned 2

David, hmmmm....

I still don't think Wilson's is right -- the yellow still doesn't seem intense enough, and that bit of white at the vent simply doesn't fit. So I think we're down to Nashville versus Orange-crowned. I have a feeling we're going to be leaving that undecided.

Interesting photos, by the way. I notice that the Orange-crowneds are both very bright -- typical of the west coast race, either lutescens or sordida (probably the former). I have one photo from N. Arizona, ssp. orestera, and one from Pennsylvania, ssp. celata. Both of them show dark legs, although the celata has orange undersides to the toes. It's pretty hard to see the legs on this bird, but the left one appears sort of gray, and the ankle joint on the right seems orange. I wonder if there's some sort of geographical variation involved here?
The Nashvilles I have are two from PA -- both of them show dark legs with orange toes as well. I still suspect that the white vent is indicative of male Nashville (females should show more) but then again, the yellow is rather washed out, like a bright celata.
And even the range is only of marginal help -- Orange-crowned winters on the Gulf Coast, while Nashville winters in southern Texas, rarely to Houston -- and this was taken in a winter that held a Least Flycatcher into January!

Paul, I agree with the Wislon's being too bright for this one but was just hedging my bet given how much variation there seems to be in all the warbler species...

Of the Orange-crowned I had read that only the Channel Islands sordida doesn't make it to Texas during migration but that the three remaining, the Pacific coast gray celata, the interior West's intermediately-colored orestera, and the Taiga's bright lutescens (color descriptions by Cornell, population geography by Sibley c/o his blog) do winter in Texas- how close to the Gulf Coast I don't know although GlobalTwitcher records celata 50km north of Houston in February and lutescens near San Antonio...

I had specifically excluded the Nashville because from all the information I have read as supported by the photos below, we would expect to see a white belly distinct from the yellow undertail coverts- in the photo above we can see that other than at the vent, the yellowish wash is uniform from undertail coverts to flanks and up through the belly:

Nashville 1

Nashville 2

In terms of wintering distribution for the Nashville, the Boreal Avian Modelling Project states that it would only be found in the extreme south of Texas (whereas it describes both the Wilson's and Orange-crowned as "upper Texas coast")...

this is supported by the Audubon/Cornell range distribution map for Harris County (Houston) which shows that the Nashville is not recorded between the end of November until mid-March

Let's see, David -- I guess Dunn/Garrett have a different definition of rare wintering than Audubon/Cornell. As far as the Orange-crowned ssp geography, I suggest you check again. I think you've got Taiga and Pacific races switched (Sibley's guide shows the Pacific as the brightest, Taiga as the dullest, and Dunn/Garrett show celata as the eastern/taiga ssp, and lutescens as the west coast).

oops, sorry, you're right Paul, I did get the ssp. geography switched- it should have read: "the Taiga's gray celata, the interior West's intermediately-colored orestera, and the Pacific coast's bright lutescens do winter in Texas"...

distribution according to Sibley's explanation of the use of regional names instead of subspecies which he justifies thus:

"I found that when I started using regional descriptors for different populations it actually increased my own understanding of the variation (I had been confused by the scientific names for years!), and it gave me the freedom to describe actual geographic variation without being constrained by published subspecies names. Some may think this approach is a bit cavalier, but the truth is that geographic variation is understudied in most species, subspecies have been named very inconsistently, and there are many subspecies in need of careful revision."

I have wondered for a while how some have been very "confident" with their naming of subspecies and have to assume they assumed subspecies based upon published subspecies range as opposed to in-hand (or even mtDNA) determination... of course, just as we have seen with so many other bird families and genera, the traditional Ernst Mayr biological species approach doesn't address issues to do with phylogeny or even ecological niche...

The following 1998 Spring Migration Windows on the Upper Texas Coast chart by the Houston Outdoor Nature Club Ornithology Group indicates that the Nashville Warbler is "very rare" for the first three weeks of March, "common" during April into the first week of May, tapering back to "very rare" in the last two weeks of May, not recorded in June...

I think that any wintering populations could have been assumed by the March entry as reflected by records for the Orange-crowned, Yellow-rumped, and Common Yellowthroat- all "abundant" for the whole of March and as noted in the 4th Edition of the Texas Parks and Wildlife "On the Warblers of Texas", these are the only three that are regular wintering species...

Although these photos of the Gray-crowned Yellowthroat are from Hidalgo and Cameron Counties, much further south on the Gulf Coast, I may have too easily discounted it as a possibility as the same Texas Parks and Wildlife document attached in comment 19 lists 40 accepted records in Texas since 2004...

a "brighter" Gray-crowned Yellowthroat

Guessing Hooded. Color and shape of the tail. Color of the feet.

Hey Duncraft,

Although the Hooded made my final six, I ended up excluding it mostly because, as you can see in this Environment Canada range map, it's normal wintering range is so far south of Texas and it's northwards migration in the Spring is not until April...

I also note that this particular species, no matter the age or gender, has some of the largest white tail spots found in any of the new world warblers (Parulidae) which I would expect to be able to discern above...

I remain hedging my bet on an Orange-crowned!

Yeah, agree that it's a long-shot. However, there have been lots of unusual sitings all over the country this year, birds way out of their ranges. Artic gulls on the Cape and in Georgia, etc. So, maybe I'll just luck out!

I agree that "rarities" occur more often than rarely!

I suspect, however, that the recent southern occurrences of the Ivory Gull to which you refer, is more a reflection of the more rapid climate changes currently visible in Arctic ecosystems as opposed to a more general trend for all species- in fact, the trend in the US is tending to move species northwards towards colder latitudes at an average of 35 miles, with 20% of the species discussed in the 2009 Audubon Birds and Climate Change- Ecological Disruption in Motion publication now 100 miles north of traditional ranges.

I guess my sticking to the Orange-crowned is just relying upon the basic tenet of using range as a first filter... my Peterson Advanced Birding stresses this as regards warblers where it states: "a good rule of thumb, when you suspect that you've found any of these rare and relatively unpatterned warblers in winter [vs Yellow, Nashville, MacGillivray's, Connecticut, Mourning] is to ask yourself: why isn't this bird an Orange-crowned Warbler?"

David, that reminds me -- has that Advanced Birding been updated since the first edition?

Good question Paul- in my edition it is copyrighted 1990 and doesn't list it as a new edition, but all the book companies listed this particular "edition" as printed in 1999.

Hey David,
Found this image of an orange-crowned and have to admit, the backside looks almost identical to the subject here. Think you've pegged this one. http://bit.ly/9ZWiqN

Grrl, when you reveal the mystery, could you possibly ask Joseph for some companion shots of this individual (as with the ducks, I assume he shoots multiples of each bird when he can) so we can take a confirming look at presence/absence of wingbars, eyerings, overall plumage coloration, eyestripe, superciluium, etc.? Thanks!

when i can do so, i will add a less mystifying picture of the same individual. in this case, i have a picture of the same bird sitting on the same branch, facing the photographer.