A Warbler of Unrivaled Facemelt...Imvireoation...An Unabominable Oriole

Blackburnian Warbler resides in a league of it's own. It's particular brand of facemelt is unrivaled by any other bird on the continent, and that includes all the fancy tropical stuff. It borrows the colors of the classic oriole palate (orange, black, white) and mixes them with brilliance. It is a bird of Great Success.

Hi birders. Welcome to summer. Migration in the hemisphere has ground to a standstill, and birds have gotten down to the business of grinding something else...cloacas. How does that grab you?

I haven't seen any migrants oscar mike for quite some time now, and that's ok. South Texas was very rewarding this year. I don't even require a fallout experience to say that. Hell, I didn't even realize how consistently good South Padre Island could be until I got out there for the first time. Anyways, I am grateful for getting the chance to flog the migrant-laden shrubbery so much, and so I offer you another glut of migrants. 

Sadly, I only saw a handful of Blackburnian Warblers this spring, which may not be enough to hold me over for very long. It's an addicting bird.

In contrast, Blue-winged Warblers were much easier to come by. They are fidgety little bastards though...the ratio of Blue-winged Warblers seen to Blue-winged Warblers crushed is heavily skewed toward photographic failure. This bird was a bottlebrush junkie though, and it's nectar-lust quickly overrode any misgivings about having to lurk too closely to a human being. 

I was left rather chuffed in the aftermath of this observation.

Chestnut-sided Warbler anyone? This bird has furnished many cherished memories for me over the years, from Humboldt County's Patrick's Point to the talons of a Pearl Kite on a Costa Rican coast; from the bucolic Berkshires to the migrant traps of South Padre Island. It is the Warbler of Nostalgia.






Only the most anesthetized birder, bloated with hubris, can ignore such a bird...even one in sub-crippling plumage such as this one. 

The very first time I came out to South Padre Island, a blooming bottlebrush was completely surrounded by a phalanx of photogs, who were standing guard around the tree and generally being in everyone's way. The mood of a major twitch was in the air. I thought that there absolutely had to be something facemelty in that tree, or something rare. As you can see, I was wrong. They were in heat over Ruby-throated Hummingbirds...not that there is anything wrong with that, but when I am in heat over Ruby-throated Hummingbirds I prefer to ride it out in privacy.

Ah, the Solitary Vireo. It is a variable bird. Plumbeous and Cassin's get mistaken for each other. So do Cassin's and Blue-headed. This is a dull Blue-headed, which is doing a convincing impersonation (imvireoation?) of a bright Cassin's. How many Cassin's Vireos get passed off as uninspiring Blue-headeds? How many dismal Blue-headeds get passed off as bright Cassin's? It is an ongoing tragedy to be sure.

Here is what a Blue-headed is supposed to look like...allegedly.

Bullock's Oriole is a western species, no doubt. In south Texas, their distribution in the Lower Rio Grande Valley is solidly clinal...the further east you go, the more uncommon they become. In the Falcon Reservoir area they are fairly common, but it's a rare bird on the coast. This female is one of two Bullock's I saw at South Padre Island.

In California, vagrant-hunting birders aren't overly concerned about telling apart female Bullock's from female Baltimore (female/imm. Hooded vs. Orchard is a more frequent dilemma). However, I get the impression that birders in the eastern U.S. seem to struggle with this ID...they get more intermediate-looking Baltimores than we do, I reckon. At any rate, this a typical female Bullock's...a dull, almost lifeless yellow is confined to the upper breast, head and tail, dark "tooth marks" extend into the top of the white wing bars, and relatively pale wings do not contrast sharply with the white wing bar and edgings of flight feathers. For the record, I did see my lifer Bullock's X Baltimore Oriole there this May (an adult male), which was an abomination and not actually very spiffy.

A male Bullock's Oriole, on the other hand, is an unabominable oriole. It's one of those spring arrivals that makes you think, "Shit. I forgot that birds look like this. It's amazing". Shortly afterward, your knees buckle and you collapse to the ground in an awesome agony. Then two weeks later they are practically invisible because you are a jaded birder and cannot appreciate beauty.

Oranges upon brilliant oranges with this bird.

This is the one and only Prothonotary Warbler that I met this spring. She hung around the convention center for quite a while, feasting on oranges with reckless abandon.

Look at the heavy bill of this bird. Compared to the bill of something like a Wilson's Warbler, this thing is like a fucking toucan. Also, the fact that this bird has managed to appear pear-shaped is yet another amazing accomplishment.

Did someone say Wilson's Warbler? Behold one here, in all it's mellow glory. All photos in today's post were taken on South Padre Island, TX.

From South Padre Island to The Astral Plane: A Cerulean Warbler Vision Quest

It was April in south Texas. Migration was in full swing...a glance at NEXRAD on any given day would likely show thousands of birds migrating over the area. I was going out to South Padre Island 3-4 times a week, the closest coastal migrant trap. I was checking eBird multiple times a day on days I was unable to get to the coast. I was, in fact, consumed.

One day I was birding the convention center, and was told that the bird I lusted for was hanging out down at the Sheepshead lot. Off I went. For an hour and a half I walked in circles, trying to find it. I even ignored a newly-arrived vagrant Red-headed Woodpecker, so focused I was. But birds come and go from the island all the time, and the area was so small I assumed that if I could not find it, it had already departed. I was wrong.

A quick check of eBird later that night had revealed the truth....someone had seen the bird after I had given up. It had been there the whole time. I had dipped...I was furious. I bashed my head into the wall, and blood poured from my forehead. Reeling and foaming at the mouth, I flipped over a table and howled with rage. My coworkers tried to restrain me, but were of little help. They didn't know...how could they? I could see the fear in their eyes, which only encouraged my disturbing grip-off episode. "Don't judge me you bastards!", I screamed at them, flailing my arms wildly. Eventually my anger dissolved into tears, and I fell into a catatonic depression that lasted through the night.

Cerulean Warbler was the bird I needed to meet. I had never seen one. Having done most of my birding in California, it was not an optimal state to be living in to see this bird. They show up every few years, but they are notoriously difficult to get within the state's borders. It's a major blocker for a lot of birders. Still, it was something that us vagrant-hunters hope for, but my yearnings have gone unrequited. I have had my chances elsewhere...I am no stranger to birding the east. Many years ago I heard one singing high in the treetops at Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts, but I could not lay eyes on it. Since then, I have had trouble sleeping, but my dreams are always vivid, and generally disturbing. I even dreamt of seeing a Cerulean Warbler once, which triggered a weeklong bout of insomnia...I had to stay awake, in case I was meant to find the Cerulean. And so the years went by, and I saw many new birds...a Baird's Sparrow here, a Whiskered Auklet there...but not the bird that has haunted me for far too long.

The spring of 2014 was meant to be my time. The Spring of Steve. It would be the first time I had ever spent an entire spring anyplace where Ceruleans can actually be expected. If I was going to meet my target warbler, it would be this year. Along the Texas coast, Ceruleans lie somewhere on the spectrum between rare and uncommon...it's not a bird you expect to see on any given day, but it's something that could show up at any time. And show up they did....but never at the right place, at the right time.

One week and twenty-six stitches later, I did my usual bedtime check of eBird. There it was...another Cerulean Warbler report from South Padre Island. It was a single observer report of a female, and had no documentation. My eyebrows were raised. South Padre Island is saturated with sketchy birders who misidentify things left and right....this was not an observer I was familiar with. I decided to sleep on it, which was an interesting experience in its own right...I had dreams of no other than a female Cerulean Warbler, bouncing around in the trees of the convention center. The dream was startling in its realness. It almost seemed that she was reaching out to me, beckoning me to gaze upon her pleasant yellowy greenness.

After work the next day, there had been no further reports....but what the hell? The birding gods, or possibly the warbler herself, had reached out to me the night before, and who was I to ignore any of them? Why not head to the coast? And I did. Puttering around the convention center did not result in any adrenaline-producing warblers, but the birding wasn't bad. I began to feel secure about an absence of Ceruleans in the area, and I should let it go and just enjoy myself. Eventually, my coworker showed up, who was a casual birder. I briefly had walked away from him to check another patch of trees when he texted me..."female Cerulean over here". I sprinted back to the spot, clotheslining several photographers along the way. They hissed and clawed at my legs viciously, but they were no match for a power birder who was on his way to meet his nemesis. One waved his gigantic 600mm lens at me in some sort of threat display, reminiscent of a fiddler crab, but with no burrow in sight he quickly fell to the ground and curled into the fetal position when I came near. "Don't hurt me", he said in a feeble whimper. "I just want to see Indigo Buntings".

It turns out that the woman who had found the Cerulean the previous evening had refound the bird, despite no one being able to locate it all day. She was decidedly not a sketchy birder. I walked up to where she and my coworker were standing, and they pointed at the tree it was in. It was surely right in front of me. We waited. And waited. Another birder said he saw it from the other side of the tree, but quickly that became suspect. I started to panic. Where was the bird? The worst-case scenario that had flashed through my head only a few minutes before was becoming true...my coworker had somehow effortlessly and nonchalantly seen the bird I had fruitlessly waited almost 20 years for. I started to get weak in the knees and moved off to vomit a strange, viscous, black oil into the shrubbery.

And in a split second, things would never be the same. The female Cerulean Warbler appeared, bouncing around above us for a good 10 minutes, sometimes coming down to eye level. A strange, high wailing sound began to become apparent, and it took more than a moment to realize that it was coming from me. Tears were streaming down my face, and for some reason my head wound had opened up as well. Nearby birders, recognizing me as United States #7, gathered around me in awe, hoping to join the spiritual experience. One woman gently touched my cheek, collecting some tears and blood, and dabbed the scarlet mixture onto her khaki shirt. The Cerulean Warbler began to glow, and for a minute it's green and blue rays elevated me to a place that I had never been before, and may never visit again.

A few minutes later, after the emotions and bodily fluids had subsided somewhat, a cry rang out from around the corner. An adult male Cerulean Warbler had arrived! The bird was not as cooperative as the female had been, but it was only a few minutes before it's crippling effects began to take hold of me. It was much, much more than what I had hoped it would be. How could such a bird, with only a simple palette of blue, black and white, be so facemelting? It made a male Black-throated Blue Warbler look like a goddamn Abert's Towhee in comparison. Fifteen minutes after I had first contact with the male, my body could not handle the observation anymore. With limbs locked and twisted, some birders eventually had to carry me to my car (a serious chore, considering all the wretched, retribution-seeking photographers we had to avoid) , and it was another hour of groaning and drooling until I recovered enough to drive off.

That night, I again dreamt of the female Cerulean. Under cover of darkness, she was surely migrating north over mainland Texas at that very moment. For a brief instant, she had left her earthly flightpath for a detour through the astral plane, where we briefly looked each other in the eye, one last time. Since then, I cannot help but wonder...what will I have to sacrifice, what part of me will I lose, in order to see that next nemesis bird? But I sleep soundly now, for I am not afraid.

I have seen the Cerulean Warbler.

Red-headed Woodpecker...Blackpolls and Butthurt...One for the Herpers

This is the celebrity Red-headed Woodpecker that spent some time on South Padre Island this spring. I've only seen a few ever before, so you can bet I was deep into the stoke when I saw this. What made it even better was that when I first heard about it, I specifically did not chase this bird, even though it was only a block away. A big crew of geri were sprinting/scuttling/hobbling/limping over to the woodpecker and I thought it would give me a better chance to find the Cerulean Warbler that was in the area. This tactic failed miserably, but at least the woodpecker was still present several days later.

Unlike everyone else who were practicing their wildlife harassment skills on this bird, I just stood next to a tree it liked and was within a few minutes rewarded with a crush. What a crippler!

One thing that this bird made painfully obvious was how annoying and indifferent photographers can be with birds. Although you can easily witness this yourself on any spring day on South Padre Island, this bird seemed to constantly have some tool mercilessly chasing it around the convention center, for days on end. It's not like flushing a bird is a big deal (well...sometimes it is), but this woodpecker had a whole harassment crew to keep it as bummed out as possible. Wankers.

People don't seem to realize that birds will often just beg you to crush them if you don't try to chase them out of the state. Pictured is a Scarlet Tanager, not giving a fuck.

To all the colorblind birders out there...I am truly sorry. You have my sympathies.

This female Scarlet Tanager that spent a weekend at the convention center was one of tamer birds I've met this spring. Once she became addicted to oranges, she would do anything for a wedge.

Blackpoll! How poignant.

My, what crisp plumage you have. Such orange legs you possess.

A Blackpoll Warbler utters an otherworldly bellow from the convention center's water feature. It's pretty funny hearing all the seething photogs whine and pine for how the water feature used to be set up, when the birds were more exposed and had to come closer to people to take a drink or bathe. There is some serious butthurt going on out there.

Speaking of butthurt, that's how I was planning on feeling if I didn't get a good look at a Gray-cheeked Thrush this spring. I had only seen one ever before, and that was for a whopping 10 seconds, about 10 years ago, at Marblehead Neck in Massachusetts. Well, my butt does not hurt and my ass does not ache. Gray-cheeked Thrush has become pretty predictable on SPI, for the time being.

More than one birder has told me, discreetly, of his/her fixation with vireos. Well, this one is for you. I thought I would be seeing a lot of Red-eyed Vireos this year...that has not been the case. I reckon this is my best photo of one for the year (it's been weeks since I've seen one), and I'm pretty happy with it.

Have I seen my last Hooded Warbler of the spring? Yeah. It's a sad state of affairs.

The Hooded Warbler is enthusiastic about being near the ground. Not so much as an Ovenbird, but if you get warbler neck from looking at a Hooded Warbler, you are either suffering from an extreme case of stunted growth already or you are misidentifying the bird entirely. While many birders suffer from various renditions of stunted emotional growth, I find the latter scenario more likely.

Finally...one for the herpers. I was told this is a Laredo Striped Whiptail, which one can find many of at the Sheepshead lot on South Padre. Most I have seen have not been this large, or so cerulean. Whiptails are parthenogenic, aka have Virgin Mary powers. The mind reels.

Migrants Oscar Mike

We are just past the peak of spring migration down here, but the migrants are still Oscar Mike and should be for a while. They say that May means empids in the LRGV...I've fared poorly so far...some Least Flycatchers and a "Traill's", and that's it. EBird is lighting up with Alder and Acadian reports, which I prefer to just think of as mostly misidentified Least Flycatchers and Eastern Wood-Pewees. This may be wishful thinking, but if you want to see some astounding feats of bird identification failure, this is a good place for it. The best one I've seen so far was a lady who identified a Black-bellied Whistling-Duck as a woodpecker.

As you know, I've been birding South Padre Island relentlessly this spring. I have major FOMO when it comes to missing interesting migrants on the coast, although by now I have seen many of them, and it is getting late for the one I am still really lusting after (Swainson's Warbler...there is a reliable eBird report from there this year...life is pain). So now I'm basically just going out to find some new Empids for the year, hang out with the expected migrants, and hopefully find a fantastic rarity like Black-whiskered Vireo or something that boggles the mind in a similar manner.

Mostly, I'm just enjoying eastern flavored spring migration, and seeing birds I don't normally get to crush or otherwise bump into very often. Newly-arrived birds drop in throughout the day, so the longer you spend on island, the more you will see. Just when you are ready to call it quits something fancy will show up, and after an hour, the process tends to repeat itself until you wonder how you managed to spend all day at two or three tiny spots.

Canada Warblers should be more regular this month, I only saw one in April. This bird is a real, honest-to-god crippler. The face pattern face melts. I mean, the eyering is two different colors...intricacies abound within the blinding goodness.

Thankfully, Chestnut-sided Warblers have become easy to find on SPI. They are very crushable. I find their plumage to be quite innovative.

It's like they have a moustache that goes all the way down their flanks. Pretty sick.

The Blue-winged Warbler photos I have now have improved since the last couple I posted. Like many warblers, this is a species that frequently is feeding only a foot or two off the ground here. Not what I would expect, but I'm not complaining.

I struggle to think of a caption for this. Not the crushiest shot, but you get the general impression of the bird. How do I go years at a time without seeing them? It can't be healthy.

After the scourge of Yellow-rumped Warblers departed (mercifully early), Tennessee Warbler quickly became the most abundant migrant warbler. Being nectar junkies, they are often quite confiding (see crush above). As of this writing, it still is the most abundant warbler out there. I have seen far more TEWAs in the last month than in all my life leading up to this spring. There sure are a lot of Tennessee Warblers out there.

Of course one of the downsides of having so many TEWAs around is that A) people misidentify them as Philadelphia Vireos and B) if you hear about a Philadelphia Vireo, you instantly become overly suspicious that this "vireo" is actually a Tennessee Warbler.

Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are often around in good numbers, although they don't seem to be quite as predictably abundant as the orioles. I think I like them better than Black-headed Grosbeaks. Sorry Black-headed Grosbeaks.

This one lacked the black breast streaking of the above bird. Younger individual?

Migrant sparrows are few and far between on the coast...Savannah and Lincoln's Sparrows, and some Clay-colored Sparrows (above), and not much else. Ever since my time working for Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge, I think of North Dakota whenever I see a Clay-colored. Their style is economical but I am a proponent of all the humble prairie birds.

Oops...not a migrant. Even Mottled Ducks come in to the bird seed that is scattered at the convention center. This is a bird that will never get anyone's pulse racing, but then again I'm happy to see one up close for once.

For some reason it seems immature and female Painted Buntings not only far outnumber adult males, they are also much more fearless. This is unfortunate. Can't say the same for Indigo Buntings.

Here's one of the few cooperative male Painted Buntings I've seen recently. Why does this exist? It's too much.

I have had the misfortune of seeing several mildly rare, western birds on South Padre Island. Of course a male Townsend's Warbler is certainly a crippler, but I would much rather see mildly rare eastern birds. Cape May Warbler? Yes please. I have no doubt that in the blink of an eye I will be knee deep in Townsend's Warblers again and longing for Black-throated Green Warblers.

Migrant Chugging

The birds are just chugging through South Texas now...anything and everything seems to be showing up. My sense of birding FOMO is growing quite acute, although my obsessive monitoring of the weather makes me not worried that I'll be missing a fallout anytime soon. Right. I was lucky enough to come across some cooperative Yellow-billed Cuckoos last weekend. Usually shy and reclusive, the cuckoo does not always stick to it's reputation in the company of one #7 birder.

I could get used to hanging out with stationary cuckoos. I feel like they do this a lot. I wonder what these birds mull over when not migrating or casually decimating tent caterpillar colonies.

Scarlet Tanagers are also moving through now, with reckless abandon. Birders are getting blinded left and right...many will never be able to see color again. I swear there is nothing redder than a male Scarlet Tanager. A cardinal appears dull and lifeless in comparison.

The notorious threat posture of the male Scarlet Tanager is enough to make anyone weak in the knees.

Drab birds want to be crushed too. Here is a female Scarlet Tanager. Note the short, grayish bill and contrasting dark wings, which help set them apart from female Summer Tanagers. They actually remind me of female Painted Buntings a little bit.

This is the one and only Veery I've seen this year. On the day I saw it, it was constantly foraging way out in the open. Very few people seemed to notice it though, although it seemed to be begging for the attention of all birders and photographers in the area. Pro tip from #7: if you want to avoid the hordes of birders and photographers at South Padre Island, watch brown birds.

See? Begging for attention. The descending, ethereal song of the Veery is one of my favorites by the way...if you've never heard one, be assured that you are poorer for it.

Although gifted with a Veeryish voice, the song of the Swainson's Thrush doesn't compare. No offense Swainson's Thrush.

I do enjoy Swainson's Thrushes...they are a fun bird to study, and relatively variable. The birds here are much drabber than those of the west coast, but still have a lot of color in the face. And yes, I have seen a couple Gray-cheeked already this spring.

There are piles of Indigo Buntings out on South Padre right now. Talk about facemelting. I'm not really accustomed to crushing helpless birds like this but I'm not complaining. If Scarlet Tanager owns the color red, Indigo Bunting has mastered the color blue.

There are often a pleasant number of birds around. Sometimes there are hella. This is hella. Here are Indigo Buntings, Orchard and Baltimore Orioles.

Dickcissel has arrived!!!! Before this year I've only seen them as vagrants in California. Now I feel like a non-vagrant Dickcissel veteran...I've seen some big flocks on SPI. I'm still trying to make sense of their face and breast pattern...its complicated. Their distinctive, fart-like calls easily give them away as flyovers.

Franklin's Gulls are still coming north in big numbers. Note the limited black visible in the underwing, and obvious white primary tips, which help differentiate it from Laughing Gull. Of course, Laughing Gulls do not have pink bellies.

The other day I went out after some north winds had been blowing, hoping for more migrants putting down than usual. While there was no fallout, there were thousands of Franklin's Gulls around the convention center. Here is a chunk of the big roosting flock.

The Global Birder Ranking System has subsequently informed me that being in the presence of so many Franklin's Gulls has awarded me +8 points. Not a bad way to level up. All photos in today's post were taken on South Padre Island, TX.