During a visit to the Battle Creek Cypress Swamp early Sunday afternoon, I had short encounter with a Yellow-rumped Warbler that looked and sounded like the western subspecies, "Audubon's Warbler." It had a yellow throat, which did not extend back below the cheeks; a plain face with a split eyering but no obvious supercilium and no contrast between the cheeks and nape. The bird's call note was higher and sharper than the calls being given by the Myrtle Warblers in the same loose flock.
The bird was in a loose mixed flock of Yellow Rumps (27 Myrtle), chickadees, and titmice that I encountered around 1325. I watched the flock as it worked through the trees between the west side of Grays Rd just south of Sixes Rd, paying only brief attention to my pishing. The flock moved out of those trees, SW across the field, and moved on into the more extensive woods towards the Cypress Swamp boardwalk. Within the next half hour I observed a similar sized loose flock of Yellow-rumps moving through the trees above the boardwalk (below the Nature Center) in the same general direction, but the trees there are much higher and I did not spot a yellow-throated bird among the flock.
Sherman Suter
Port Republic MD 20676
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