Warbler Guy, which bird apps are the best to buy? There's a warbler app? Best bird app or best bird apps to buy?

Excellent idea, Joannie.

1. I suggest you purchase the fine wood-warbler-centric app that corresponds to The Warbler Guide:

It's found at the iTunes store or at the Google Plus store

Buying the book is also a good idea, if you wish a nice resource to complement the classic Warbler field guide in the Peterson Guide Series (Peterson Guide To Warblers, Jon Dunn & Kimball Garrett, 1997, Houghton Mifflin).

2. I also use:

iBird Pro

Sibley Birds

Both of these apps are EXCELLENT

I especially like the sonogram expression on the iBird Pro whereupon a song plays and I see the sonogram represented as the song progresses.

As for a GREAT Sibley Birds feature: the gull section is wonderful, given each age class phase (First Cycle through definitive plumage) is shown for each gull species.

So, for example, seeing the different age class phases/cycles of the Western Gull vs. the Glaucous-winged Gull is important because these two can hybridize and/or the 1st and 2nd cycle phases are sometimes challenging to distinguish in the field.

Sibley's app ALSO features different songs from various USA areas that are different song versions than those found in iBird Pro.....hence, both of these apps are complementary....and, as a result, I use each one often, especially on my bird tours that I regularly conduct for birders that hire me.

In other words, I like to let them listen to the songs of the bird species we are pursuing, especially if a birder is NOT familiar with the songs of the species we are seeking during a foray.

Regards and happy summer, Daniel

warblerwatch.com (features my "Bird Tours" area & my resume)

warblerwatch.blogspot.com (# for this blog...which is now nine years old...)

Warbler Guy: What “strange” common names were previously designated for some of our wood-warblers?

(The above Black-Throated Blue female's vastly different appearance in comparison to a definitive male of the species is suggested to be the reason John James Audubon named it a different common name, the Pine Swamp Warbler.)

Common Yellowthroat was once often referred to as Maryland Yellowthroat. John James Audubon mistakenly named two Yellow Warblers as Children’s Warbler. In another instance, Audubon misnamed two juvenile Yellow Warblers as Rathbone’s Warbler.

Audubon was not alone in his naming confusion. Beyond Audubon, naturalist/painter Alexander Wilson also made his share of identification mistakes. Both of these luminaries – as well as other contemporary birding experts in bygone eras – are to be excused because during their tenures little was known about the relationship between plumage changes and corresponding definitive field characteristics.

Audubon’s failed nomenclature decisions periodically continued to surface as he gathered specimens for his paintings. Originally calling a bird specimen he collected in Pennsylvania the Pine Swamp Warbler, he later realized his subject was truly a Black-Throated Blue Warbler.

Later, Audubon was misled by Wilson’s naming procedure into thinking a Blackburnian Warbler was worthy of being designated a new species, the Hemlock Warbler. Audubon, in fact, was never able to correct this misnaming mistake. Another misplay hearkens to May 1812, when Audubon caught a wood-warbler specimen that he named Vigor’s Warbler in honor of Nicholas Vigor, an English naturalist. More correctly, Audubon’s find was an immature Pine Warbler. His confusion was probably the result of the collected individual being in vastly different habitat than its usual pine/needle tree haunts.

Even the Canada Warbler was originally misnamed by Audubon. When he first drew the bird as it perched on the fruiting branch of a magnolia, Audubon suggested it be named the Cypress Swamp Flycatcher. Later he changed his mind, renaming the bird as Bonaparte’s Flycatcher only to again change its designation to Bonaparte’s Flycatching Warbler.

Eventually, it was confirmed that Audubon’s specimen was instead a young female Canada Warbler. Eight years later, Audubon painted the same species and mistakenly called it a Canada Flycatcher.