Thanks for posting the third photo, Justin.  To my eye the third photo  
reinforces the impression that I got from the first photo that this is  
a short-tailed bird, with short projection of the tail beyond the  
undertail coverts.  For this and other reasons stated previously, I  
think this bird is more consistent with a young Mourning Warbler than  
with MacGillivray's.  But it is still a fun debate!

Scott Morrical
<[log in to unmask]>
South Burlington


Quoting Justin LeClaire <[log in to unmask]>:

> Hey birders,
>
> I am the one who took the photographs of the highly debatable
> Mourning/MacGillivray's Warbler last Saturday at the Brilyea access. I
> received an email from Dave Hoag the other day informing me of programs
> that allow you to recover deleted or otherwise lost photos from compact
> flash cards, and last night I tried one of these out and did get a result.
> I had taken 11 pictures in all of the warbler and had deleted all but the
> two that I put on flickr as many of you know, and I was able to recover one
> additional photo using a recovery program. Most of the pictures turned out
> to be corrupted and grayed out, however this one only had partial gray in
> it and gives an additional angle that may help with the undertail covert
> discussion. The link is below. A rare/unusual bird report has been filled
> out and sent to the Vermont Bird Records Committee for evaluation. I hope I
> haven't dragged this out too much for everyone.
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/85270080@N05/7851828234/
>
>
> Thanks,
> Justin