AlexHenry

Western and likely Least Semipalmated and Least Semipalmated

It may well be, but it’s not very much to go off. Not a clear and unambiguous Creeper to me. I’d leave it off the list, and probably try to get visual confirmation or a better listen.

Seems like Wood-Pewees with the long primaries

Yes, it’s a Kinglet. Probably you will see a lot this winter!

It is a Pipit

I agree with Anna’s. It could have a bill deformity with extra keratin growing for some reason, but the way it’s scraping it’s bill in the past photo, it also seems possible it just has something sticky stuck on there.

Bill shape also is telling. Tail pattern is quite different if you can get a look at that.

Editing your audio is great, but just like editing photos, it should be done as minimally as possible and in such a way to make the media more similar to the experience you had in the field. The risk with editing audio - or photos - is that you can distort the media such that it is not representative of what actually occurred in the field. For example, by boosting contrast and saturation and adjusting colors in a photo, you could make a Cassin’s Vireo look more like a Blue-headed Vireo. This is part of why eBird recommendations suggest only trimming and amplifying audio. That way no information is being lost, or added. More important than editing audio, is obtaining decent quality audio in the first place. What this means is reducing background noise as much as possible - don’t have people talking in the background for example, or wait until there is a lull in other bird noises to obtain audio of your target. Basically your results will be better if you try to do more quality control on the front end, rather than the back end.

I agree with double-crested

My first impressions are Broad-winged Hawk and Northern Waterthrush

One interesting thing to note is that all of those photos showing Golden-wings with slight yellow wash on the breast are either from the contact zone, or south of the contact zone during migration. I’d be interested to see if anyone can find photos of Golden-wings with noticeable yellow wash on the breast from north of the contact zone.

This is a very confusing species complex, even at the best of times with phenotypically pure individuals. With birds like this which may be “pure” but also maybe show small signs of hybridization or introgression, it can be very hard to infer genotype from phenotype. Basically I don’t think the genetic work has been done to prove what individual birds like this really are, and even if the work had been done, these species are so close genetically that the answer still might not be clear. Anyway, I think it’s underratedly difficult to infer genotype from phenotype for an individual like this, and I think it’s probably better to defer to people in the upper Great Lakes who study them in the contact zone. But I’d generally agree that it’s probably either “pure”, or “close enough” from a listing perspective. But from an academic perspective I personally would add some qualifiers onto that ID and wouldn’t feel totally satisfied without genetic analysis.

Awesome bird! That yellow wash on the breast below the black bib might be seen as a sign of hybridization/genetic introversion in some places back east. For example: https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/603642601

Size can be deceptive, especially without direct comparison

Just to clarify this probably could be a Pacific-slope, but I don’t think there’s enough in this single photo to rule out other options. I would leave it unidentified personally if this was all I had, and see no reason to jump to Yellow-bellied.