Honestly come-by Kentucky

[phukan@email.unc.edu (shantanu phukan)]

Dear Carolinabirders:

YEA! I don't any longer have to retire from the local bird community
in disgrace. It took me a full two seasons, but I do at last have my
Kentucky. 

AND I got it all on my own by tracking it down by its song.

This morning at 10:30 I showed up at Mile  Marker 18 in Mason Farm and
after walking away from both Scarlet Tanagers and Black Throated Blue
Warblers as though they were mere starlings I finally heard the
Kentucky really close by the trail, but just far enough in that one
had to trudge through dead leaves, which I hopped to without as much
as a second thought. As before at Raven Rock, he and I played hide and
seek with him moving on a few hundred feet to one side and resuming
his song. 

It was at this juncture that Rob Gluck showed up and I beckoned him
in; but still no luck as the bird continued to sing from practically
on top of our heads. Meanwhile the Chats scolded in the back, Catbirds
mewed, the BT Blue buzzed nearby and Scarlet Tanagers beckoned from
deeper within the forest. Turning a deaf ear to all of them Rob and I
continued our hide and seek; the Kentucky kept moving back and forth
from one perch to the second, but was indefatigable in its singing,
and it was this that ultimately proved to be its "downfall". On the
third try I popped back in to the woods, wishing I could move more
like a cat than a clumsy elephant; but for just his once the Kentucky
didn't seem to mind:  it was sitting plain as the daylight on a dead
tree, about 30 feet up, on a thin horizontal branch, and singing
divinely.

Thanks to Shelly Theye, Rob Gluck, Josh Rose and Ginger Travis, who
have all puzzled over this warbler with me and thus have helped buoy
my curiosity and nudge me on. 

Year List: 278
Life List 441

Now the only frontier remianing to be conquered is the Swainson's.


Shantanu Phukan
UNC, Chapel Hill