I decided to work from home today, and at 8:45 I glanced out the kitchen window and noticed a warbler in a honeysuckle shrub approximately 35 feet from where I stood. I casually retrieved my binoculars, quickly located the bird again as it worked its way slowly upward on the outermost branches, and was completely baffled as to its identity even though I was able to observe it well. After the bird flew into the neighbor's yard, I pored through my Peterson's Warblers, Sibley's, and Kauffman's field guides and was shocked when I concluded that I had just observed a first-year/female Kirtland's warbler.

  I reached this conclusion based on the following observations:
  *The bird was noticeably larger than the goldfinch that perched in the same shrub a few feet above it.
  *It was grayish-brown above, yellow below with white undertail coverts.
  *Its face was uniform grayish-brown with a faint eye-ring. (Because the eye-ring lacked prominence, I really could not see that it was broken.) I would say that its face most resembled that of a Nashville warbler.
  *Its breast and flanks were finely streaked. Very distinct but fine.
  *It had very faint wing-bars, appearing as a fine white edging.
  *It pumped its tail repeatedly.
  *Its movements were quite deliberate.
  *The underside of its tail appeared to be white in the center framed with black. The black was thickest at the base and outermost bottom edges.

  When I saw the bird my mental attempts to ID the bird progressed something like this: Nashville? . . . No, it's a Magnolia . . . Palm, maybe? No way . . . Canada, Cape May, Prairie, Blackpoll? . . . Man, I don't know what this bird is. . . .

  I am no fall warbler expert. Every fall I catch glimpses and sometimes better than glimpses of warblers that I leave me scratching my head and shrugging my shoulders. I have never before seen a Kirtland's warbler. I know how improbable it is that one should show up in my yard in early October. All of the above is enough to make even me skeptical, and I have literally considered every other eastern warbler, but I can't come up with a reasonable alternative. If I hadn't had such a good look at the underside of its tail, I would still likely have left this warbler as an IUB (interesting unidentified bird). But the tail clinched it for me.

  I spent much more time peering out the window and prowling my 1-acre yard than I did at my desk today. I was rewarded with finding my first-ever yard orange-crowned warbler, but I never saw the Kirtland's again. Tomorrow, it's back to the office.

  Gabe Hostetler
  Wooster
  DeLorme 50 C-3



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