Today while conducting field work for several hours at a few sites in Pennsylvania I enjoyed numerous great looks at Chestnut-sided Warblers. These birds of shrub/scrub habitat and secondary growth are distinctive and beautiful in appearance and song. Whenever I see them now I am reminded of Twan and Sean and RTPI’s work in the tropics. In Costa Rica in the Chestnut-sided wintering range they enjoy watching the birds turn into little “meatballs” as they fatten up for the flight north. In fact a Chestnut-sided Warbler banded in Rara Avis was recaptured twice over a four year period, each time in the same line of trees and roughly on the same date, showing their proclivity to return to exact winter homes.
Here are the friends I met today!
There is a lot of singing going on here, there and everywhere right now in the Chautauqua-Allegheny region. Let’s hope we find many of them during breeding bird surveys this summer. Birds of these scarce habitat types are important indicators and ones we want to find nesting successfully in our area.
Scott Kruitbosch
Conservation & Outreach Coordinator
