Kentucky Warblers at Scotia Barrens

[dc]T[/dc]his morning I decided to drive over to Scotia to see what breeding warblers were around and hopefully get some looks at Golden-winged and Blue-winged Warblers…or maybe one of the hybrids. I drove around to the south entrance off of W Gatesburg Rd since the road through the barrens is a bit rough on the north end. As I was cruising slowly up W. Gatesburg Rd towards the south entrance, I heard a distant ‘cheery, cheery, cheery!’ Pulling over to the side of the road (near the 35 MPH speed limit sign) I listened as a Kentucky Warbler sang repeatedly maybe 150 meters in the forest. I really wanted a look at this big masked warbler, but it was not to be; it soon went quiet and I was unable to refind it.
Recorded with FiRe 2 – Field Recorder, a handy iPhone app for recording birds in the field.

Disappointed at not getting a look at one of my most wanted Centre County birds, I drove up the road about a quarter of a mile and pulled into the parking area across the road from the south entrance to the barrens. As soon as I turned the car off I heard another one singing, ‘cheery, cheery, cheery!’, only this time it was much closer. I walked about 30 feet up the path and there it was, jumping around from tree to tree right along the path. I tried to capture some video but it was all pretty bad. I did take a screen grab from the video where you can make out the distinctive facial pattern of a male Kentucky Warbler. The audio recording came out much better.