Date: November 7, 2018
Source: Cornell University
Scientists
have shown that a bird found in Pennsylvania is the offspring of a hybrid
warbler mother and a warbler father from an entirely different genus -- a
combination never recorded before now and which resulted in a three-species hybrid
bird. This finding has just been published in the journal Biology Letters.
"It's
extremely rare," explains lead author and Cornell Lab of Ornithology
postdoctoral associate David Toews. "The female is a
Golden-winged/Blue-winged Warbler hybrid -- also called a Brewster's Warbler.
She then mated with a Chestnut-sided Warbler and successfully reproduced."
A
dedicated bird watcher and contributor to eBird.org in Roaring Spring,
Pennsylvania, first noted the oddity in May 2018. Lowell Burket says he spends
time birding and relaxing in the woods on family-owned property where he also
likes to take photos and video of birds. In one piece of video he noticed a
male bird that sang like a Chestnut-sided Warbler but had some of the physical
characteristics of both Blue-winged and Golden-winged Warblers. Burket saw the
bird again a number of times, reported it to eBird, and got in touch with
researchers in the Cornell Lab's Fuller Evolutionary Biology Lab.
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