[TN-Bird] 9 Cerulean Warblers

From: Melinda Welton <weltonmj@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: tnbird <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:07:14 -0500
Dear folks,
In the paper that my co-authors and I have submitted to Ornitología
Neotropical, we hypothesize that Cerulean Warblers fly directly from
highland wintering grounds in northern South America to the highland
breeding grounds in the southeastern United States or into the riverine
forests.

As a pilot study to verify if Ceruleans are arriving on the highland
breeding sites earlier than elsewhere, I conducted surveys at two known
breeding areas and two areas not known to have breeding populations.

The surveys were done using 3-minute point counts, spaced 500m apart,
without the use of playback.

Cerulean Warblers were found at both locations with breeding populations and
none at the sites without.

April 3, 2012 three males were singing full territorial songs from
traditional territory sites at the north end of Center Hill Lake, DeKalb Co.
(None were found when the same route was surveyed on March 30th.)

April 5, 2012 six males were singing at Frozen Head State Natural Area
between 2,300 ft to 3,000 feet elevation. None were robustly singing.

While playback was not used during the 3-minute point counts, it was tried
twice at Frozen Head after the counts. In the first case, after a point
count at a traditional territory yielded no CERW present, a male responded
almost immediately to the playback; second, after a point count had revealed
a single, weakly singing CERW,  two previously silent neighbors chimed in.
Hence, playback may have revealed many more birds had it been used during
this survey.

It's fun to note that these are the first Cerulean Warblers reported this
year based on birder reports to birdingonthe.net list-serves for TN, GA, AL,
AR, MS, TX, FL, SC, KY, VA, and WV! One Cerulean was seen on High Island
today, April 6th.

Melinda Welton
Franklin, TN


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[TN-Bird] 9 Cerulean Warblers

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