A Winter Visit with Yellow-rumped Warblers

Despite the predominance of cold and gray, winter is a fun time of year to get reacquainted with feathered friends that only visit the yard during this season.  Besides the pleasure of having red-breasted nuthatches visiting the feeders daily, there are some other birds that I'm always delighted to see.

Some times yellow-rumped warblers make an appearance and because they are very busy, shy and acrobatic, they disappear before I can catch any images.  At other times, like this occasion, I just happen to be at the right place, still enough that they ignored me, and close enough that I could enjoy some intimate looks.

A warbler gleaning insects from around the brim of the bird bath caught my attention from the window and I stepped out with my camera a few minutes later to see if maybe he/she was still around.

 

I think I will always remember a speechless moment I had while attending the New River Gorge Birding and Nature Festival in West Virginia in 2010. We were all there to see warblers returning to their breeding territories and singing. On one day in the field we found a beautiful male yellow-rumped warbler along our walk. Having  previously only seen this species in the winter in Tennessee, I was delighted to see breeding plumage and snapped a bunch of images while he lingered on an eye-level branch.

I was lagging behind the others, as I often did, and a lady walked over to me and asked what I was photographing.  When I showed her, she waved her hand dismissively and said, "oh, I've seen a million of those".  

 

I had no words to respond.  It is doubtful that I will ever see a  warbler often enough to have no interest, especially this sweet annual visitor.   I'm still snapping images of  American robins when the opportunity arises.  There is always something new---different lighting, different behavior, a different color combination in their plumage, a different expression.

And these images were smile worthy.

 Do you think she's looking at her reflection?

Yellow-rumped warblers on this blog.  Click the link to see the warbler I was photographing in West Virginia
Cornell's all about birds:  Yellow-rumped warbler