Yellow-rumped Warbler On The Windows

For the last week, a butt load of butter butts (aka yellow-rumped warblers) have descended on my neighborhood.  They are fueling up before they head south and they are an end of the warbler migration.  You may have heard them in your neighborhood, their migration call chip note sounds a bit like a kiss.

This morning, one flew right up to my window screen.  Of course this happened just as I sat down to coffee at my computer, my camera was in the kitchen and my cell phone was charging...how to get a photo?  I supposed it wouldn't have made a difference because all I could see was the tail on the screen and periodically a tiny bill going for some tiny insect that hangs out on our window screens this time of year.  Eventually, it flew to a wire outside the screen and a little bit of pishing kept it in one spot for enough time for me to digiscope a few photos.

The yellow-rumps were covering trees, stucco walls and windows for bugs to build up their fat stores for migration.

Though I was unable to get a shot of the yellow-rumped warbler on my window screen, I was able to get one gleaning insects off of my neighbor's window.  At this point, I did wonder if any of my neighbors noticed the big scope out of my kitchen window--really, I'm taking photos of birds.  Honest.

After the yellow-rumped moved on, a young house sparrow flew up.  One of the things that makes house sparrows so adaptable is their ability to find food.  I've watched them watch chickadees when I add a new feeder.  They seem to study how the chickadees land and find food and after a day (or a few hours) give it a shot themselves.  The house sparrows watched all the warblers in the trees and clinging to buildings in my neighborhood and then would flutter in the same spots the warblers had been looking for food.  The above bird hung out on the corner, searched the frame and then continued to watch the surrounding warblers, it was almost as you could see the thought bubble, "How are these guys finding food, I don't see what they're after."

Ah, yellow-rumps, I love them but they are the sign that migration will soon be winding to a close and winter will be in full throttle.  Enjoy them while they last.

The Birds That Got Away

One of the things I was counting on to give me an edge over Clay in our Digiscoping Duel was this mountain ash tree (or rowan as Mr. Neil calls it).  It's ripe and the berries time perfectly with fall migration.

This tree can be loaded with all sorts of birds like the above female rose-breasted grosbeak and I did get shots of cedar waxwings right away, but as soon as the contest was over, all sorts of species flew in for a feast.  The light hit the tree perfectly, so I stuck around after the contest was finished to get some shots.

Of course there were more waxwings.  My first photo wasn't bad but they practically seemed to be posing now that the contest was over.  Above is an adult cedar waxwing.

The younger waxwings that were hatched this summer will be stripey.  If you have waxwings in your neighborhood, take a moment to watch them in your fruit trees--they attack the fruits and berries with such verve.  They don't come to bird feeders--they don't seem to have any interest in sunflowers and millet.  They will come in to birdbaths and you generally don't get one at a time, you get thirty (at least).

I love watching them gulp berries.  These small, slender birds are easy to miss in tree branches.  Even their calls blend in well if you are tuned into them.  Here's a link to waxwing calls so you can know what they sound like.

Among the waxwings was this Tennessee warbler (dude, where were you during the digiscoping challenge--arg).  Especially after the dreadfully blurry and ghostly image of that black and white.  Ah well, win some, lose some.

Too small to grab a whole ash berry and gulp it, this bird used its dainty bill to pierce the skins to get at the juice on the inside.

The next bird that popped up was a male scarlet tanager already in his winter plumage--really, tanager, you're killing me here.  I will say this, even though I tried to use a fence and bush to break up my silhouette from the sun behind me, it felt very cagey with my scope aimed on it.  It ate three berries and flew off.

Even though I already had a photo of an eastern bluebird, I was sorry I couldn't use this shot of a juvenile molting into its adult plumage.

Here was another heart-breaking shot--far better than the image I got during the actual contest of a red-eyed vireo.  Alas.  I still had a tough time getting a shot of this bird.  Vireos are known for their ability to flit about the top of a tree canopy and sing nonstop.  The bird kept moving around so much in the tree that it had trouble stopping long enough to eat some berry.  I always thought accipiters like Cooper's hawks and goshawks were ADD birds, but I suspect the vireo is even worst.  Constant movement is a good strategy--good way to sneak up on insects and confust potential predators.  Just makes going for stationary berries a challenge.

This tree is a good example of providing food for birds and other wildlife in your yard besides just bird feeders and water sources and it's part of what makes Mr. Neil's yard so fun for me to watch birds in and take their pictures.

To see more photos of the Digiscoping Duel, check the Flickr Album.

Warblers In Hand

Here's another fall warbler that we still having hanging around in the Twin Cities. This bird hit the nets a few inches from a yellow-rumped warbler. When Amber arrived to take them out, she had to separate them--they were fighting each other! I wonder if they chased each other in? I wasn't sure what this bird was, but suspected orange-crowned warbler. However, Mark and Roger were not so sure and we had to go through a couple of different field guides to figure it out...it didn't help that the bird did not match exactly any description. Even using the vent key in the Peterson warbler guide wasn't 100%. But after a series of "if this than that" we narrowed it down to Tennessee warbler. Whew.

So take heart new birders, even in hand fall warblers can be difficult to id.