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Thursday, May 25, 2017

Magnolia Warblers

Magnolia Warbler. A prototypical warbler - beautiful, colorful, and flashy.







Blackpolls versus Black and White Warblers

These birds really have little in common other than they are both warblers and they are both black and white. The Blackpolls are larger and work on horizontal branches; the Black and Whites live a vertical life looking for insects on tree trunks or on the underside of large branches.

Blackpoll (black head)

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Black and White Warbler



Tennessee Warblers

This is likely our plainest warbler and they are the only warblers that tend to migrate in groups Over the years I have pretty-much ignored them in favor of the flashier birds. Then I introduced moving water into the equation. They apparently love bathing and they are great! For the past few days they have been in and out of the stream, twittering and splashing, sometimes eight or ten at a time. A new favorite.








Redstart

This a hard bird to photograph; they are small and fliti-nervous, always on the move, jerky and seemingly randomly. Mostly photos of females because there seems to be more of them in Oakwood right now. I really haven't any gotten killer, tack-sharp photos of a male so I will post a couple of pics that are a little fuzzy. 









Chestnut-sided Warbler



Northern Parula

The Northern Parula has to be one of my favorite birds. It is one of the smallest warblers and very colorful. It nests "up north" and for some reason we do not see them migrating through every year. This was the only one I have seen this year, and it was a "here and gone" sighting. 





Canada Warbler

A great day. I took so many photos yesterday I am going to break them down by species. This is for Mr. Redwing and Ms. Carolee, who are Canadians, but rarely see their namesake bird.







Monday, May 22, 2017

A Good Warbler Day

A sunny day, cool early, then warming up nicely. I took over a hundred photos this afternoon, which required a lot of selecting and deleting this evening. It could be worse, Lorna said she took 800 photos today. Lorna got a couple of species I missed. 800 photos to sort - she is paying a terrible price for it. There is no particular reason why I selected these particular birds to post. I just like them as a nice cross-section of the day - the first good photos of the Redstart this year, Blackburnian? You have to post a Blackburnian photo if you have it. My first look at a Canada Warbler this year. It was a pretty good day, though the Yellow Warblers are around of course, but they have been camera shy so far, and rain is forecast for tomorrow.  Well, maybe next year. 

Tennessee, the most common this year.










Black-throated Green Warbler standing in the top of the waterfall.

Species? Nashville, Tennessee. Couldn't make that one up.




Birds R Us - Gunnar