Warblering

Shhh, I’m out “hunting” warblers…

Before I started birding, I wasn’t aware of the wood-warblers. Like many things, like natural history things in particularly, if you aren’t looking for them, you probably won’t see them. Fast-moving, small, and seasonal, they usually don’t show up in backyards. They are high in leafy trees (some species), and down below in the crowded understory (other species). The best warbler-dogs do it by ear, for each species has its own song, and, frankly, with the sun, the leaves, and your mortal neck, the ears are key. I’m only so-so with the songs, however, so I wouldn’t call myself a master warbler. Still, after several seasons, I think I’m getting better and better all the time.

The season is short and intense. This is migration, when hundreds of millions of birds fly north to their breeding grounds. Warblers are among these. They are just passing through (some nest in NY state, but few in the city). The change in the weather the last couple of days, especially a shift in the prevailing winds from the warmer south, means they are at last arriving in city parks in good numbers (both individuals and species). In fact, Friday morning was a fallout, with warblers and thrushes and other delights all over the place.

I’ve seen fourteen species of them over the last two days. The New York City check-list has about three dozen species of warblers on it. I’ve managed to see 27 of these over the years. On Thursday, I saw my first ever orange-crowned.

As tropical birds, warblers can be astonishingly beautiful. There are intense yellows, blacks, reds, oranges, chestnuts, and blues in their pallet. And their songs are a sudden musical enriching of the woodlands. As in most bird species, it is the male that is most resplendent, for females need to be more cryptically patterned for nesting. Some of the most spectacular are the blue-winged; the chestnut-sided; the Blackburnian, with its flaming orange breast; the cerulean; the black-throated blue, with its little rectangular patch of white on its wings, like a handkerchief in the pocket; the Bay-breasted, chestnutty on the head and sides; the American redstart, orange and blue-black; and the spies’ favorite, the prothonotary, the bird that puts the yellow in “yellow.” The black and white is simply and descriptively named. The worm-eating doesn’t actually eat worms, but has three stripes on its head and an insect-like song. The ovenbird has an orange Mohawk. The yellow warbler has red streaks on this breast. And it goes on and on.

These are superlative creatures, magical even. This is why you’ll be seeing birders straining their necks (the discomfort is called “warbler neck”) throughout the city’s woodlands this weekend, blocking the paths in their excitement.

If you’ve read this far, you can go see some lovely photographs of these jewel-like birds taken in that park across the river by David Speiser, and here at home by Brooklyn’s own Janet Zinn.