Yellow Warbler

Every campsite we stay in tends to have one or two species in abundance, birds that are around all day, regularly, and then the rest of the species tend to be passing through, sometimes very regularly, where we’re camped as I type this there’s a pair of black-throated green warblers that stop by every morning and evening at almost precisely 7AM and 7PM. At our campsite at Harrington Beach State Park the two regulars were yellow warblers and cedar waxwings.

The yellow warblers were heard more than seen, though I did see them a good bit. Unlike most warblers the yellows would sit still long enough for me to photograph them (I have only manual focus lenses so fidgety, hoppy birds like warblers are generally impossible for me to photograph). All day every day though they were in the bushes singing. According to my Audubon guide it’s usually easy to find the nests. I did not look for any, though I have no doubt they were around if for no other reason than there was an abundance of cowbirds around and yellow warbler nests are a favorite of cowbirds.

Still it’s the song that sticks out to me with the yellow warbler, the melodic, high-pitched, sweet-sweet-sweet, sweeter-than-sweet at all hours of the day and, up here, where it doesn’t get dark until 11PM right now, well into what I could call night.