Tag Archives: Nashville Warbler

More Warblers, as Promised

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I’ve been trying to get caught up with the other warbler species I have seen this spring migration. Most exciting was the Hooded Warbler at the top of this post, which appeared at Columbus Park last Saturday. It had been seen by others, but I heard it still singing so I hung around where it likely was until I could find it with the camera. I haven’t seen one of these guys in some time, so I was really pleased.

Also seen on Saturday was a Wilson’s Warbler, who finally let me get a good look at his signature black cap.

At the Chicago Portage earlier on May 9, there were Golden-winged Warblers, a Blue-winged Warbler, and more Nashville and Black-throated Green Warblers than I have seen since. They arrived right before the big windy warmup that caused the fallout the next day along the river.

Golden-winged Warbler

I took too many photographs of the Golden-winged. I apologize but this species is less frequently seen.

One bird was foraging along with a Nashville Warbler.

I think the bird below is a female.

Here’s one more with the Nashville and flowers still on the tree.

Nashville Warblers were common earlier but were way up in the tree tops.

The Nashvilles were in good numbers.

I managed to photograph a Blue-winged Warbler on the same day. I haven’t seen one since. I still have fond memories of seeing many of them a couple years ago.

There were some Black-throated Green Warblers at the Portage as well. I haven’t seen them too much this spring, but they were all over the place in the fall.

A few more…

Lately the most prevalent species has been Blackpoll Warbler. It has been relatively easy to distinguish their calls and then find them.

I have seen a few of these again since last Saturday but these photos are all the same individual.

I nearly forgot the Nashville Warblers from May 9. They didn’t stand out too much in that light.

Apologies for being quiet on this page for a while. I have unwittingly succumbed to a breakthrough infection which I can’t trace, of course, to anything specific although I have my suspicions. After two plus years of doing what I was supposed to do, getting the vaccines and masking up and socially distancing etc., etc. this is almost an affront to my sense of self. On the other hand, why not me? As mutations continue to make the virus harder to resist and restrictions are lifted, I can only count my blessings: I am not very sick, I live alone with my birds and I feel better every day. My energy is returning rapidly. I can be well and still take too many photos and start to nod off processing them. I am extremely grateful I managed to take these photographs of spring warbler migration before I got sick. There are lots more photos of warblers and some other birds to come. I hope you are staying safe and well.

Fall Warblers – Getting Ready for Spring

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I had planned on this post days if not a week ago… This could be my last ancient fall warbler photos post. Even though we will still have some cold weather to deal with, spring and the longer days are gaining attention from the birds. It won’t be long before the trees leaf out and warblers start to arrive. Red-winged Blackbirds have already started setting up territories as of March 1.

So here are a few reminders of what the warblers looked like in the fall. Below and at the top of the post is a Bay-breasted Warbler.

Below is one quick capture I managed of a Northern Parula.

Yellow-rumped Warblers like the ones below will look quite different in the spring.

Male Nashville Warblers have a tiny red spot sometimes visible at the crown. If you click on the first image below you might be able to see a hint of red on this one.

One sought-after warbler that I saw a few times but didn’t manage to photograph until a later visit in October was this male Black-throated Blue Warbler.

There were a lot of Black-throated Green Warblers this past fall.

And many Blackpoll Warblers were available for observation.

I will never tire of Magnolia Warblers although they were ubiquitous this past fall. I really think they like to flirt with the camera lens.

Not a warbler, but there was a very well seen Cooper’s Hawk that day.

Things are getting a bit more interesting as spring approaches and I will be back as soon as I can with more photos and reflections. Life goes on. Sometimes surprisingly so.

Oops, I almost forgot the obligatory American Redstart.

Falling Back

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Blizzard conditions are keeping me inside and I am tired of winter, so now I have some photographs from last September 16 at the Chicago Portage.

Before I continue, here’s what it looked like yesterday late afternoon in my yard. The birds quickly got over their spring fever and came back to the feeders in the driving snow.

The sun is shining almost too brightly this morning and the freshly-fallen snow is reflecting it. After putting the feeders back out and shoveling the accumulation that was left, I was not eager to go out for a walk in the bitter cold. I will get enough cold tomorrow at the Gull Frolic.

Back in September, there were some fall warblers, like the Nashville Warbler below complementing the Goldenrod.

Even the “regulars” looked better in September.

Black-capped Chickadee

Cedar Waxwings were all over the pokeberries.

Looking forward to the transformation back into this below.

Song Sparrow
Northern Flicker

I was a bit amused by this Red-eyed Vireo who seemed to be contemplating making lunch out of what I think was a spider.

Blue Jays

Indigo Buntings below – a female, and then what appears to be a transforming male.

I am curious to see what warbler species will predominate this year. There were a lot of Bay-breasted Warblers last fall.

I can expect to see American Redstarts this spring.

Swainson’s Thrush

After trying to no avail to convince myself that I should be feeling better, go out, brave the sunshine for a brief walk and maybe swim earlier, something seemed to be pulling me back. A few aches and pains? Maybe, but that hardly ever stops me. I sat down on the futon with some coffee to assess my mood and continue with this post. Then I heard a thud as a Zebra Finch fell out of a hut onto the top of a cage. This is not normal. Birds don’t fall. It was a hen who seems to be unwell and she will likely go quickly. It didn’t take the males long to figure out she was compromised and they tried to take advantage of her. I jumped up to rescue her and scooped her up easily enough by hand as she wasn’t really able to fly. I held her close to my heart for a moment and then put the poor girl in the bottom of the former budgie cage which is a smaller space for her to rest in peace, so to speak. Maybe my lack of resolve this morning was a response to her waning energy. Whatever it is, I was glad to save her from torture in her last hours. She has since left the cage but is defending herself against assault: I will keep my eye on her. My coffee is getting cold.

Going Back a Bit

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I have been out locally the past two weeks and there is much to post about, but I thought it might be time to take a historical break. These pictures are all from October 19th at the Portage. Only a little over a month ago, there was still more color among the birds than the leaves. I spent a lot of time with this Nashville Warbler.

Perhaps in the instance below the leaves outshone the bird – a pretty drab-looking American Goldfinch.

The other late fall warblers were on hand. Below is a Yellow-rumped Warbler.

And the one I kept seeing later and later into the season, an Orange-crowned Warbler…

Barely visible but I would know that face anywhere (Orange-crowned Warbler)

Not a lot of sparrows on hand but I managed to capture these two.

White-throated Sparrow
Lincoln’s Sparrow

And the Kinglets – Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned…

A little Portage scenery

It’s been wonderful to see Brown Creepers on so many occasions.

Always glad to see a Black-capped Chickadee who seems to return the sentiment.

This could have been the only Great Blue Heron I saw here for months since the drought caused the water level to drop so drastically.

Not a wonderful place for a Hermit Thrush to pose but I was glad to see it.

It wasn’t quite woodpecker “season” yet but I managed to see this female Downy Woodpecker.

There are lots more historical visits to make sense of – indeed a flurry of fall warblers that I was so busy taking pictures of I barely have barely had time to go through them, so they may periodically provide a little visual warmup during the cold.

I am mourning the death of my beloved singer/songwriter/implacable musician Zebra Finch male to whom I gave the name of Arturo Toscanini. He died Thursday morning. I found him on his back, on the floor of the dining room by the windows. He was still warm when I picked him up. He had been singing a lot lately, and I think perhaps he had been telling me his time was coming because I found myself thinking about how old he had to be, even though he had no signs of aging or impairment, other than it seemed his little goatee was getting whiter and whiter. The blessing in all of this is that I have one of his offspring who is singing an abbreviated version of his Arpeggio Song and an even shorter memory of his TaTaTaTaTAH Song. Also, other birds have taken up the actual Toscanini Song that he used to sing a long time ago. And there are many more songs among them to catalogue and follow. At some point I hope to go through the years of recordings (I determined I must have gotten Arturo sometime in late 2014) to see if I can put together a timeline of his compositions. In the meantime, I am incredibly thankful for all the avian musicians I still have with me. Singing is their raison d’etre, and music is life.

Long Before the Rain

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It’s been almost 3 months, which seems hard to believe, but this is a more historical account from McGinnis Slough for birds seen on September 19th, when the slough looked more like a marsh at best. Yet there was more bird activity and a couple less common sightings.

It started off inauspiciously with a European Starling.

But at some point I found a Northern Waterthrush, which is a warbler species I haven’t seen in a long time. They aren’t particularly rare but they don’t travel around in warbler flocks and are often close to water and the ground.

One of my first White-throated Sparrows of the season was in the grass.

Perhaps the bird of the day as far as offering itself up for photographs was Palm Warbler.

Among the land birds was this Swainson’s Thrush.

The Double-Crested Cormorant below gave me several expressions of its flight pattern.

More views of the faded-looking Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly at the top of the post.

I never know exactly where I can expect to see a Great Blue Heron here but I practically always do.

More flying birds to capture – a Great Egret and, of all things, a Blue Jay or two, which don’t normally make themselves so available.

Two warblers – a Nashville and then below, a female Common Yellowthroat.

I saw Gray Catbirds at this location more than once.

The light played interesting tricks on these two Wood Ducks flying through the marsh.

The rose mallow flowers seemed late and sparse but they prevailed.

A Yellow-rumped Warbler blending in below.

More flying birds. Cedar Waxwings directly below, and below them, the inevitable Canada Geese.

A couple views of the parched-looking slough.

And a closer-cropped view of the Great Egret seen in the flight sequence above, after it landed.

I have been seeing some amazing birds all week which has kept me more than busy. Even though migration has slowed down, there are still birds to be seen. I will be back as soon as possible with more recent sightings.

Down by the River After the Rain

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These photos are from two visits to the Riverside trail on October 20 and 27 – both after periods of some significant rain. Although the Des Plaines is nowhere near flood stage, it is good to see it looking more like a river.

Activity around the Hofmann Tower on 10-20 consisted of two flock bursts – the expected Rock Pigeons and also a flock of Blackbirds, mostly Red-Winged.

  • The bridge
  • A view from the bridge

I saw an Orange-crowned Warbler on both occasions.

Below is a Nashville Warbler I saw on the 20th.

It was hard to get a good photo of this Double-Crested Cormorant through the trees but still nice to see on the 20th. I saw one flying a week later and wonder if it was the same bird…

It’s somewhat easier to get Northern Cardinals to sit still for a photo this time of year. As long as they feel somewhat shielded by a twig…

I saw Brown Creepers on both occasions, and was lucky to photograph this one on the 27th.

A Mallard here and there…

European Starlings are in groups, as usual.

One of those Red-winged Blackbirds still hanging around.

Below on the left is the sign posted at either end of the trail in Riverside that runs along the river. On the right is a sign opposite the western end of said trail, which denotes the Plank Road Meadow which features a boat launch.

House Finches are more visible now.

A tree full of Mourning Doves…

I expect to see more White-Throated Sparrows, but managed to capture only the one below.

I was going to simply add the photo directly below and call it a Tennessee Warbler – even though the face looked a little suspect to me. Then this morning when I flipped over the Audubon calendar hanging over the kitchen sink to November, the photograph of the bird on it looked like the one below, only it was identified as a Pine Warbler. So I took out The Warbler Guide to confirm – because now it was showing up as “rare” on my ebird checklist – and went to the bill shape again. That’s what made the face of this bird not look at all like a Tennessee.

Just to elaborate, I rescued the photos below from my external hard drive and found a few more clues to the Pine Warbler identification. There’s ever-so-slightly a hint of wing-bar showing on a couple photographs, but best of all is the one I brightened up a bit, where the bird is looking directly at me. That’s a Pine Warbler face if I ever saw one. I have to be more careful going through all these photos!

Below is a lovely little Song Sparrow.

The remaining Great Blue Heron is not as visible now from the bridge.

Catalpa tree seed pods on the left, and well-eaten Pokeweed on the right.

An American Robin for good measure…

Not sure whose web this is but I found it interesting.

I saw the Red-tailed Hawk flying below before it landed in the tree.

A few more scenes of this location as the late fall progresses.

We are flirting with overnight freezing temperatures. Indeed, this morning I had to scrape the frost off the windows of the car before I went for a walk at the Portage. Today I will be draining as much water as I can store into empty vinegar gallon bottles, to be used in the now-heated birdbaths all winter.

And as the days get shorter and I see fewer birds… take fewer photographs… maybe I can start revisiting the reason why I started this blog in the first place: my fascination with bird song and the birds’ reactions to music. For the moment, I would like to share with you a funny incident I happened to record way back on August 29th. I was playing piano – I have been revisiting Schumann’s “Kinderszenen” – and perhaps that day it had become a bit of drudgery – I was likely distracted by the fact that my effective retirement date was 2 days off. In any event, I struck a wrong chord while playing the 9th piece of it (“Ritter vom Steckenpferd”) and my indoor crowd IMMEDIATELY let me know that was not acceptable. Which not only proves they were right, but also that they are always listening! Below is the clip. Enjoy. 🙂

Great Blue Heron

Catching Up

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Here it is the end of September and I am just getting around to photos from the 10th taken at – where else? – the Chicago Portage. The activity seemed to die down a bit that day so there aren’t quite so many to sift through. Magnolia Warbler above and directly below.

I’m not 100% sure but I think the bird directly below is a Pine Warbler. One of those confusing fall warblers…

This was the first time I had seen a Northern Parula in a while. A not-so-common warbler around here.

A few other birds seen that weren’t warblers…

Red-eyed Vireo
For the record, a Ruby-Throated Hummingbird…
Swainson’s Thrush

Blackpoll Warblers have been everywhere, or so it seems. Below is another.

Never confusing, a Black-and-White Warbler below. I suppose if you couldn’t see them well you might mistake one for a nuthatch as they behave the same way.