Warbler Capital of the World

This week, the annual event called The Biggest Week in American Birding is happening in northwest Ohio. I took this picture of a prothonotary warbler last year at the festival.

Thousands of birders will converge at the Magee Marsh to watch and photograph the tens of thousands—maybe more—of warblers and other birds migrating north. The Magree Marsh is a favorite stopping place for the birds. It has a wide boardwalk winding through it, with several raised viewing platforms.

The event is amazing not just for the shear numbers of birds, but also for how easy it is to see them right at eye level. Many of these birds are more often heard than seen, because they spend most of their days flitting about high in the trees. Warbler neck is a real problem for many birders. But it’s no problem at the Magee Marsh this week, because so many of the birds are right in front of you.

I’ll post some of my other favorite shots from last year throughout the week. The event has a website you should visit if you’re thinking about going (and you should), at www.biggestweekinamericanbirding.com. It’s located about an hour’s drive east of Toledo.

The only one of its kind

What makes this penguin the only one of its kind? It’s a Galapagos Penguin, found only in the Galapagos Islands. Specifically, it lives on some of the islands which lie barely north of the equator; making this the only penguin species that lives north of the equator. How does it survive in such a tropical environment? The Humboldt and Cromwell currents bring cold water to the Galapagos, making it a suitable playground of these penguins.

The Galapagos Penguin is endangered. There are only about a thousand breeding pairs. A chance to see these birds is just one more reason the Galapagos is such a special place to visit. When I was there, not only did I see them on their nests, but I also got to swim with them. I was snorkeling, and a penguin came swimming right past me; shooting through the water like a bullet!

Catch of the Day

This is one of the first pictures I took, and it’s always been one of my favorites. It’s an American Oystercatcher, but I was a long way from America when I took this shot. I was in the Galapagos Islands. That helps explain why this bird with its catch was fairly oblivious to my presence. I shot this with a 200 mm lens and couldn’t have been more than 20 yards away from the bird. I honestly am not sure what that is in his or her bill.

If you’re near the water, you’re likely to see an oystercatcher. They live on the Atlantic coast  from New England to northern Florida. Oystercatchers also live on Florida’s Gulf coast, and as for south as Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.You’ll also find them on the Pacific coast — in California, Mexico, Central America, Chile and Peru. 

During the breeding season, these birds are found along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and from Massachusetts south to Argentina and Chile. In winter, they are found in flocks along the coast from central New Jersey to the Gulf of Mexico.

It has a a nearly identical cousin called the Eurasian Oystercatcher. I saw them on the west coast of Scotland, while playing the Machrihanish Golf Course. The Oystercatcher is part of the club’s logo.

I love, I love, I love my calendar girl (or boy)

Cedar Waxing girls and boys look alike. This is not uncommon in the bird world. I guess it’s not important that we know the girls from the boys. They know.

Notice those bright red tips on the secondary wing feathers. They are hard and wax-like. And that’s where the last part of the bird’s name comes from. The first part comes from part of their diet: cedar cones.

I took this photo last summer in Glacier National Park, hiking a trail through some woods that had burned in a forest fire a few years back. I’d long wanted to get a good picture of a cedar waxwing, and they’re pretty uncommon where I live, so I was thrilled to get this shot. So much so that I put this picture on the cover of my 2019 calendar. It’s also the picture for this month.

I’ve got a few strong candidates for cover photo for next year’s calendar. I’ll start taking orders around Labor Day. I hope you’ll want a few!

Just Passing Through

Pictured here is one of the signs of spring I eagerly await each year. For about a week each spring (and again in the fall), my backyard plays host to a few rose-breasted grosbeaks as they make their way further north to their breeding and summer homes (or toward their winter quarters somewhere much further south of here).

I saw a male in my yard Sunday. This photo is from the spring of 2017.

The male is one of the most strikingly beautiful birds in North America; jet black back, snow white front, and that cherry red emblem on its breast. The female looks almost nothing like this; she’s all brown and streaky.

Endemic

In the world of birding, endemic is the word used to describe birds that are found only in a particular place. For example, the grey and yellow beauty pictured here is a warbler. But you won’t find it migrating north this spring. This is a St. Lucia Warbler. And that’s where it stays.

We had the chance to visit St. Lucia a few years ago. It’s one of the Windward Islands in the Lesser Antilles. It is the only nation in the world named for a historical woman, Saint Lucy of Syracuse who lived in the 3rd Century. The legend is French sailors became shipwrecked on the island on December 13, the Feast Day of St.. Lucy.

St. Lucia has one other feature that makes it unique in the world: the only volcano you can drive through. If you can handle the sulfur smell, it’s pretty cool.

The island has five birds found nowhere else: the St. Lucia Warbler, St. Lucia Finch, St. Lucia Oriole, St. Lucia Pewee, and St. Lucia Parrot. If you visit the island and want to find these birds, I suggest you hire guide Adams Toussaint. Not only is a skilled at finding birds, he also knows the island and its issues very well and is a pleasure to spend a day with.

Day for Night (Heron)

As the patch on the top of his head suggests, this is a yellow-crowned night-heron. He’s the more solitary and sometimes more furtive cousin to the other night-heron, the black crowned one. And as the name suggests, they do most of their work at night. Note that heavy bill. Ornithologists think it could be an adaptation for feed on crabs and other hard-shelled crustaceans. Bermuda introduced these night-herons in hopes of controlling the exploding land crab population. The plan worked!

Herons are generally wonderful to photograph because they tend to sit still for many minutes at a time. This is especially true of night-herons, which tend to be quite lethargic during the day. I got this shot in one of my favorite birding spots, the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary near Naples, Florida. They live in southern Florida year around, but you can find them in the summer months as far inland as eastern Oklahoma.

'Tis the season!

This is one of my favorite shots. I took it in February of last year near Naples, FL. Eagles and ospreys lay their eggs a few months earlier than typical backyard birds, so this little guy was already trying to get a look at the world six weeks before the official start of spring. But soon nests everywhere will be filled with eggs and then with baby birds.

To help accommodate the ospreys, utilities and developers put large, flat platforms atop poles to give the big birds places to build their very large nests. This one sits about 25 feet off the ground just off the beach at the Pelican Bay development. Because it wasn’t as high up as many other nests, I was able to get a good angle. I was just trying to get a good picture of the adult osprey, when the baby happened to pop up. As any photographer will tell you, you have to be lucky sometimes.