Yellow Warbler
One benefit from the scorching and inclement weather of the past week was the slow passage of a weak cold front (ha ha, “cold”) that brought us some actually conducive avian migratory conditions. Think about it…when was the last time before this recent August turbulence that we in the Northeast had any winds out of the north? We have had endless southerly or westerly-influenced flows bringing heat, humidity and then thunderstorms and heavy rain, all the opposite of what the birds are looking for to migrate south in this time of year. We are now in mid-August and any time...
Read MoreSo Yellow Warbler
This is a very yellow warbler! Actually, it is such a yellow warbler that it is a Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia). If you ever wonder why I capitalize all the common names of birds it is for primarily this reason among a couple others (email list serv posts being another big one). Not everyone knows scientific names, and when referring to these common names, the birds should have a certain recognition that they are a species and not a yellow warbler – like a Prairie Warbler, or a Common Yellowthroat, or a Wilson’s Warbler, or others! And if you ever spot a little gull, be...
Read MoreYellow Warbler on Queen Anne’s Lace
It turns out there are a lot of fans of Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota)! This Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia), photographed yesterday, is among them. The autumn migration continues (what?!) with birds heading south for the winter, and Yellow Warblers enjoy stopping in grasslands and shrublands to feed on the many insects they contain. The faster you can start your journey south the more food you will find along the way all while making a more relaxed trip. Suffice it to say this bird will not be facing the prospect of ice and snow as some warblers still migrating in October...
Read MoreCommon Yellowthroat
This male Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas) and I are rather close…or at least we were for about 30 seconds on a recent May morning. This bird is a migrant, though you may end up with a resident in a yard near you. Their common name does betray their abundance, and gardens, marshes, fields, forests or anywhere they can skulk about in dense, low vegetation works for them. Being a habitat generalist has helped the species end up as one of our most common warblers. It also makes them a frequent target of Brown-headed Cowbirds and brood parasitism, like the abundant Yellow Warbler....
Read MoreYellow Warbler
They may be all over, but it is hard for me to resist targeting my camera to a Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia) in May. This guy was another one of the beautiful sights during last weekend’s Noble Proctor BioBlitz Challenge. It seems as if more are still migrating through, actually – this spring started early but ended up late. After all the warmth in the beginning of the season poor migratory conditions in late April and early May pushed a lot of birds back to “traditional” sort of arrival dates…or even later! It certainly feels like we have a lot of birds...
Read More
