Black-throated Gray Warbler in New London

Black-throated Gray Warbler

Another year down! 2024 continued my decreasing trend of local birding, but I did pick my spots and managed to find a few cool birds along the way. The last of which was a Black-throated Gray Warbler last week in New London, CT. 

With a full weekend of work ahead, the plan was to bird the New London/Waterford coast with waterbirds being the focus. I had just left my first stop at Fort Trumbull Park which overlooks the Thames River. Just a couple short blocks away from the fort is a Wastewater Treatment Plant, which have increasingly been known to harbor lingering insectivores as early winter temperatures plummet. In my tunnel-vision approach to waterbirds this morning, I actually drove past the sewage plant before deciding to turn around for a quick look.

It didn't take long to hear my first warbler, a Palm, calling from the tanks inside the facility. It was soon joined by a second. As I was watching the Palms, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a small bird hop on the ground between piled leaves just on the other side of the fence. I looked down, but whatever it was had gone behind leaves that were wind-blown against the base of the fence. In that brief glimpse all I could really tell was that it looked highly contrasting (i.e. not a sparrow). A few seconds later, out popped a BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLER, happily foraging on the ground.

I enjoyed the bird solo for a bit. It was super close but very actively hopping and flitting through leaves, fence, and thicket. I got word out and soon folks began to arrive. It was very cooperative at first, foraging near ground level alongside the road. At one point it did go missing into the weedy lot to the east of the treatment plant, but was eventually refound and seen by all on site. This was December 27th. The bird was still present and cooperative as of this writing on New Years Day and was successfully tallied on the New London CBC on the 28th.

While I haven't turned over every stone attempting to age and sex this bird, I think I've landed on HY female as the most likely. Brown primary coverts and brown wash to the back should age it as a hatch year. The lack of black in the back with minimal black in the throat area would suggest female. There may be more black in the auriculars and white in the tail than your average HY female, which gives me pause, but I'll stick with likely young female at this point, for now...

This appears to be an above average year for vagrants of this species to the NE USA. There are recent autumn/winter records from surrounding states and one HY male currently at a private residence in New Haven County, Connecticut.

This was a fine way to conclude what was overall a pretty fantastic year. International birding trips in 2024 included Senegal, Bulgaria, and Brazil's Pantanal. Yes, I still hope to play some catch-up and post full trip reports on those latter two trips. Senegal would likely only see a photo highlight post at this point :)

Happy New Year, all.

 - Nick