Confessions of a warblerholic

The wood warblers have returned, as they have done for millennia unnumbered. They are coming out of a night sky thick with migrating birds, thickets that show up on Doppler radar like weather patterns, falling on the green islands of the city to eat furiously before catching another tailwind to fly north to breed. And since they have come to breed, they wear their breeding plumage. So they are like flying flowers, the Tropics come to the north.

Ones I’ve seen so far this season, roughly in chronological order: yellow-rumped, pine, palm, black and white, northern and Louisiana waterthrushs, yellow-throated, ovenbird, yellow, worm-eating, common yellowthroat, prothonotary, northern parula, black-throated green, Nashville, prairie, Canada, black-throated blue, Blackburnian, chestnut-sided, magnolia, and American redstart. More to come, hopefully! [Update 5/6: blackpoll, Cape May] My favorite is the Blackburnian, a bird with an orange flame of a throat. On overcast days, it’s like it brings its own sunlight, and on sunny days it simply blazes creamsicle amidst the green.

Now, the beginning bird-watcher is apt to grow frustrated by little birds darting swiftly among canopy leaves. Like everything, it takes practice, and a supple spine. After all, most of us fall off the bicycle the first time we try to ride.

I certainly had my moments of being confounded during my first few warbler seasons. I still do. I need to refresh my memory again each April after the long drought of winter: the Prospect Park checklist has 38 species of warblers, with two more listed as Rarities (meaning very rare, showing up a few times over the decades). The best warbler spotters do it by ear, for each species has its unique song/call. Someday, I may reach that state of mastery, in a few dozen more years, say….

Q.: But why, man, why?
A.: The beauty, the challenge, the stretching of two senses to their utmost, the fresh air, and the dawn’s early light. And watching spring progress over a few short weeks from bare to fully erupted. And hearing that buzzy chorus amid the hanging oak catkins. And being awed by a half-ounce animal that has flown all the way here from South America. There are many marvels in the world, but this is one of the sweetest.