Sunday, September 4, 2011

Black Throated Green Warbler!

Black Throated Green Warbler
A nice warm morning - a little humid and lots of mosquitos. Immediately heard the peewee from the woods behind the JCC.

Went straight down to the pond in hopes of spotting a heron before the joggers tromped through at 7:00 a.m., but no such luck.

Then headed through the woods to the upper gardens. There were tons of robins and some catbirds and mockingbirds - many with their late season young. Also managed to see a beautiful orangey-yellow oriole that may have been a female, but I suspect it was a young male. There were flicker families as well foraging on the ground and in the trees. Titmice were in a small tree flitting around and seagulls flew overhead.

Red Eyed Vireo
A hummingbird was actively pursuing nectar from any appropriate flowers. Strong presence of song sparrows. A house wren was perched on a trellis with a catbird and a robin. A fence had another group of characters - a chipmunk, a catbird and a song sparrow all surveying the area. I was excited to see a red-eyed vireo in the main mulberry tree and followed it to some scrub where it finally came out in the open and I was able to get a quick photo.

Meadow Spider
The highlight for me though was a black throated green warbler pictured above. It was very busy and far away, but it finally made it's way towards me and came down from a very high tree to a bush nearby.

As I peered into one of the gardens where I had seen some movement, I came across this beautiful meadow spider. They are absolutely stunning.

6 comments:

  1. Suzette, that's a Blackburnian Warbler, not a Black-throated Green Warbler. Good bird! Where did you see it?

    I was there on Monday and had a hummingbird and a Northern Waterthrush in the woods behind the upper garden, but not your warbler!

    Great photos!

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  2. Really? It was back in the unusual warbler corner in the upper gardens to the left as you face the river and then it flew to an aspen tree near the russian gardens where they have the little wooden bench and table near the path that takes us to the shortcut through the woods to the soccer field.

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  3. Haynes, are you sure it's a blackburnian? I just looked at more pictures and to me it looks much more like the blackthroated green. It had distinctive wingbars and it wasn't at all orange. Let's discuss further next time we meet at the park...

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  4. Look at the orange lower eyelid, and the orange on the shoulder. Also I think the wingbars of a BTGW wouldn't be as bright. This is not a summer male, of course!

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  5. Well, I'm pretty excited about that. Fall is still very confusing to me.

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  6. Wow that is really confusing, still a pretty bird. Could you take a look at this warbler? Is this a black-throated green? https://picasaweb.google.com/101096660875349454614/UnidentifiedBirds?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLfbp9Sdwsy6jAE&feat=directlink

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