A Journey Complete

I never get tired of warbler stalking: time spent with my camera walking through the brushy thickets avoiding wet feet, swatting mosquitoes, checking for ticks, all the while listening and looking for the tell tail sign of warblers.

My favorite? All of them but especially any warbler who comes out in the open long enough to allow me to focus and capture a terrific image.

The truth is - I could fill an external hard drive with images of the Common Yellowthroat. The males look like little bandits with their black face mask with a fuzzy white border. In flight (low to the ground) their olive brown color is a perfect camouflage. But once they land their bright yellow is unmistakable.

You hear them long before you see them - by the time you zero in on their proximity, they will have moved; usually not far but gone nonetheless. A twitch of green, a momentary flash of yellow gives them away. Before they are gone. Again.

What is also unmistakable is their song ... a bold "wichity-wichity-wichity" that heralds the arrival of that wonderful season: almost summer.

Like all energetic warblers the Common Yellowthroats are elusive and nearly impossible to photograph. They rarely are seen "in the open" - they prefer to stay close to thick vegetation on the ground. A solitary bird, they can be seen in pairs but it is the male who is first to make the long trek from Central America, Mexico or the Caribbean.

It never ceases to amaze me to think about these tiny birds - 5 inches in length with a 7 inch wing span - following an unknown call that compels them to wing their way across open water, through farmlands, forests and cities to make their way back to a small section of land in northeastern Wisconsin and announce the arrival of summer.

"A Journey Complete." Digital Image. May 22, 2013. Original photography

Copyright (c) Cindy Bergeron Scherwinski 2013