Hooded Warbler in Bennington, VT, July 2014

With only a 3-4 previous VT records, a post of a Hooded Warbler found in Bennington sure got my attention.  The observer, Eric Seyferth, mentioned that he had heard the bird in the same spot in Whipstock Hill WMA for several days, so it was likely a chaseable bird.  I contacted Eric and he agreed to meet me at the beginning of the trail and hike with me to the spot where he was hearing and seeing the bird.

I met Eric early the next morning and we began the hike into the WMA.  The park had extensive areas of lush deciduous woods with some nice undergrowth.  As soon as I saw it I told Eric that this seemed like classic habitat for southern species like Hooded Warblers.  We were well along the trail when I heard a bird singing in the distance to the left that sounded a lot like a Hooded, though it wasn’t a perfect match.  I pointed it out to Eric who thought it was just a Redstart.  And besides, it wasn’t at the location where he had been hearing his bird anyway.  So we just assumed it was one of those highly variable Redstart songs, and we continued along the trail.  After another quarter mile or so, and as we neared “the” spot, I heard a perfect Hooded song off to the right.  We walked off the trail and Eric took me to the specific area where the bird was most often heard.  And within a few seconds it popped into the open giving us great views.  It continued to sing for the next several minutes right in front of us, before eventually flying off deeper in the woods.  Likely this bird was trying to set up a territory and looking for a mate, though no one ever saw a female.

A week later not only was this bird continuing to be seen, but amazingly a second male Hooded was spotted a short distance away from the first bird.  Eric investigated this second bird and realized it was giving a somewhat aberrant song – the same song we heard the day I was there.  It turned out the bird we heard that we passed off as a Redstart actually was this second Hooded Warbler.

I’ve now seen Hooded Warbler in each New England state – the 226th species I’ve seen in all 6 states.  I’ve also seen it in a number of other states either at the very edge of its normal range like OK and MN, or as a vagrant outside that range as in the northern New England states (see my statebird map below).