What bird says pleased to meet you?

The bird singing pleased, pleased, pleased to MEETCHA is a Chestnut-sided Warbler, a small warbler with a yellow cap and chestnut stripes down its sides. It breeds from the Great Lakes and the Northeast south through the eastern states to northwest Georgia, in brushy second growth, overgrown fields and forest edges, and arrives in May. The song is a run of high, clear whistles that ends with an emphatic flourish. Its closest sound-alike is the Yellow Warbler, whose sweet, sweet, sweet, I'm so sweet can come out sounding almost the same.

Listen: the Chestnut-sided Warbler

The phrase shows up in print with small variations. Audubon's field guide calls the song rich and musical with an emphatic ending, sometimes heard as very very pleased to meet cha! Wikipedia renders it pleased, pleased, pleased to MEECHA. Nobody agrees on how many times the bird is pleased, but everyone agrees on the finish: a run of similar notes, then a two-note ending with the weight on the first syllable. That accented ending is the signature.

Here is the catch: not every song has it. Wikipedia explains that the accented song is the one males use to attract females, and that they sing it less once nesting is well under way. For defending territory and squabbling with other males, they use unaccented songs that drop the final MEECHA. So a Chestnut-sided later in the season may sing a run of sweet whistles that never gets around to meeting you, and that version is much harder to tell from a Yellow Warbler.

Chestnut-sided Warblers breed in eastern North America, from Saskatchewan to the Maritimes and through the Great Lakes and the eastern states, as far south as northwest Georgia. They want young, scrubby growth: woods regrowing after a clearcut or fire, overgrown fields, forest edges, and thickets of briers and brambles. Migration peaks in May and September and happens mostly at night, and the winter is spent from Central America to northern Colombia, with the largest numbers in Costa Rica. Audubon notes that the species is apparently far more common now than in the early 1800s, because cutting the eastern forests created the brushy habitat it needs.

The sound-alike: Yellow Warbler

The Yellow Warbler is the bird that fools people, experienced birders included. Its song is a whistled phrase that goes down and then up at the end, and many birders learn it, as the Missouri Department of Conservation puts it, as sweet-sweet-sweet-I'm-so-sweet. In a piece for Audubon on sound-alike warblers, Tom Stephenson writes that the Yellow Warbler sings a version of its courtship song that is very similar to the Chestnut-sided's, and admits it has fooled him more than once. Its territorial songs are quite varied and can also sound very much like a Chestnut-sided.

Where you are standing helps. The Yellow Warbler is usually found near water. In summer it favors willow marshes and the banks of larger rivers and streams, and on migration it turns up in wetland shrubs, along streams, in parks and in backyards. In Missouri, for example, it is present from April through September and breeds mostly in the northern half of the state.

How to tell which one you heard

• Listen to the ending. A firm, accented MEET-cha to finish is the Chestnut-sided's courtship song. Stephenson describes the Yellow's similar version as a bit higher, brighter and less emphatic.
• Count the opening phrases. The Yellow's lookalike version usually has fewer phrases in its first section. A clear song in three sections with bright, expanded notes is a Yellow Warbler.
• Check the habitat. Willows and wet thickets by a stream or marsh: think Yellow. Brushy clearings, overgrown fields and young regrowing woods: think Chestnut-sided.
• Mind the season. Later in the breeding season, Chestnut-sided males sing more of their unaccented songs with no meetcha, so the ending test works best in spring.
• Get a look if you can. A yellow cap, a black stripe on a white face and chestnut along the sides is a Chestnut-sided. A bird that is evenly yellow, with yellow patches in the tail, is a Yellow Warbler.

When the singer stays buried in the leaves, Warble can listen and tell you which of the two is introducing itself.

Questions people ask

Warble is a game, not a field guide. Facts about birds on this page come from the sources above.