Hi everyone,

I wanted to put a final post in about the audio clip I asked for help with
on Tuesday.  Thank you, thank you again to everyone who has contributed
their input.

It seems that the general consensus appears to be Cerulean Warbler. 
Blackburnian is out, Parula most likely too, the only hangup is a few with
concerns that it could be a Cerulean-like song from a B-T Blue Warbler.


My mentor, Tim Spahr, up in Massachusetts, sent me the following on the
Cerulean from the Peterson Warbler Guide:

"Song is a series of buzzy chee or zeep notes, shifting to an
ascending and accelerating buzzy series and ending in a high,
prolonged buzz.  The effect is of a buzzy song rising in
three stages:  zeep zeep zeep zeep zizizizi zeee!  zray zray zray zray-zray
zreeee!  or burr-burr-br-br-br-brbree?The song is easily confused
with some songs of Northern Parula, but the terminal high-pitched
buzz of the Cerulean *is diagnostic*." (his emphasis).

Somewhat humorous, this morning in birding Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Boston,
(hoping for a fallout and indeed finding 21 species of Warblers), Tim heard
a BT-Blue doing a Cerulean-like song, now he's second guessing himself.  =)


Also, I had a few people asking what equipment I use for recording.  Last
April (just before migration) I picked up an Olympus WS-300M for about $60.
 I don't use any fancy external mic, just the built-in one.  It's great
because you just pull the battery part off and plug it into your computer's
USB.  I highly recommend it, for the price, I don't know of a better option.
 I used to try to write down unfamiliar songs I heard with a combination of
phonetic sylables and spectrogram-like bars (indicating coarse speed,
frequency).  This has helped me ID some birds that I would've remained
unidentified without it.


The Paint Branch Trail has been pretty good this week, up until today which
was relatively slow.  There was the (presumably) Cerulean Warbler on Monday
and my first-ever Nashville Warbler yesterday.  Other new arrivals include
2-3 Y-B Chats (one audible from home), Blue Grosbeak on both Tuesday and
Wednesday and it seems that a pair of Warbling Vireos may be nesting. 
There's an Acadian Flycatcher off the loop above Cherry Hill Rd who also
seems to have settled in.

Good Birding,
Ryan Farrell
College Park, MD