Jewels of the Woods

The season of the wood warblers and vireos is here. Although they are plentiful they are still not easy to see. Watch for a quick movement in the leaves, a shadow flying across a thicket, a flickering in the corner of your eyes. Then keep looking in that direction and you may be lucky. Pishing may lure them out into the open, but only briefly until they have satisfied themselves that you can safely be ignored.

Wilson's Warbler

Prairie Warbler

Black-and-White Warbler

Yellow Warbler

Warbling Vireo

Tomorrow I am off to Cape May for the Maygration Birding Festival. 

Until next week then, happy birding!

Wood Warblers and other spring migrants

The warm weather over the past several months deluded us into thinking that we had skipped winter and that it was spring already, but the birds kept to their usual schedule. 

On a couple of walks I saw among others a Canada Warbler, a Chestnut-sided Warbler, a Palm Warbler, a Yellow Warbler and a Common Yellowthroat. There were also plenty of Yellow-rumps and A. Redstarts, but none held still long enough for a decent shot.

I always marvel at the great diversity of colors and patterns among the warblers. There is such an amazing congruence between what we find beautiful and what the females of the species find beautiful ---after all it's the females who, over the course of evolution, select the males whose looks they find most pleasing.

Photographing warblers can be extremely frustrating. They are usually high in the trees and moving faster than my finger on the shutter release. Often when I look at the photos at home I can't even find a bird in the tangle of leaves.  

In terms of flycatchers there are plenty of Eastern Phoebes around, but other species are rarer. So I was happy to get this cutie, most likely a Least Flycatcher to judge by the complete eye ring and the short wings. 

Finally I got a brief glance at a Rusty Blackbird walking along the mud bank of the West River, the first one I have seen in a couple of years. Vegetation was blocking my view down to the river and when it finally opened up the bird saw me and promptly disappeared. So no luck in getting more shots.  

Happy spring birding!

With Warblers patience, patience, patience...

I took a break - no birding, blogging or commenting - while my camera was being repaired. I was afraid I was going to miss all of the spring warbler season and was getting pretty morose, but I got the camera back just in time.

Warblers don't sit still for a photo shoot. It takes patience, patience and more patience. Most of my photos ended up just showing leaves and bird-shaped shadows. So I am going back for another try at that elusive Prairie Warbler, or the Black-throated Green Warbler, the Black-throated Blue Warbler....

This Canada Warbler was flitting through dark moist undergrowth on a neighbor's wood lot.

A Chestnut-sided Warbler was singing high up in a tree.

A Common Yellowthroat scolding me, but then calmed down.

Yellow Warblers always have such an innocently sweet expression, but they are ferocious predators of invertebrates!

Not a warbler but a Warbling Vireo

My time waiting for my camera wasn't all wasted. I got to go shopping for some sorely needed spring clothing, caught up with my emails with friends and relatives and got to read a couple of books. It actually turned out to be a nice respite from bird-centered activities - just too bad it had to be during peak warbler migration.

Must check out: amazing distribution maps for many species in the "State of the Birds 2011" report with much of the information collected by eBird  -- shows how important it is to submit your sightings.

Cheers and good birding!

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