Rare Bird Report: Palm Warbler in Utah!

I was very excited to see David Wheeler's post to Utah's Birdnet sharing his discovery of a Palm Warbler along the russian olive tree dominated canal by his office.  Being right off the freeway, this would be a fairly easy twitch...I thought.  Well, on the scale of twitching difficulty this wasn't all that bad.  Several other birders were there and we split up along several hundred yards to look for it.  I was lucky that it popped up on the tree in front of me where I was able to identify it.  Then it dove into the thick.  I took a few shots through the chain-link fence, but in my excitement to inform my fellow twitchers I didn't get a good focus.  I didn't have time to hang around and re-find it with the group to get better photos as my lunch-hour taken early was fast coming to a close, but photo documentation is photo documentation, right!

There have been more than a dozen reports of Palm Warblers in Utah over the years, but Utah is pretty far out of the Palm Warbler's traditional range. Arizona seems to get them frequently enough that they have been removed from the review committee list.

Anyway, a very cool life bird!  And yes, I did submit a checklist to eBird!