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The Greenish Warbler Phylloscopus trochiloides is an abundant insectivorous Palearctic migrant breeding from eastern Europe across a broad swathe of the Boreal zone as far east as the Chinese coast. Birds winter in a far narrower area of the tropical deciduous forests of India, Sri Lanka, and east Asia. A small, slender, insectivorous species found [...]

I photographed this non-breeding plumaged cisticola on the circuit through the upper part of Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve, south of Johannesburg. It was giving a very high, thin whispery sub-song which consisted of various, different “tsee” notes both from the ground and on the grass stem it flew up to. It didn’t call in the air [...]

I really enjoy going to India - the birding is great, the people (not that I’ve met all of them of course) are friendly and have a great enthusiasm for life, and travelling inside the country is always - how can I put this, er, ‘interesting’. Perhaps I’m getting more relaxed as I slide slowly [...]

Corey and I visited Central Park this morning for some early spring birding. At this point in the season, a good day might be 8 species of warbler, rather than 20. We topped 8 just barely, but made up in quality what we lacked in quantity. The undisputed star of the show was a bird [...]

About this time last year - and a few months before I joined Mike and Corey at 10,000 Birds - I co-authored a post looking at the differences between Northern and Louisiana Waterthrushes with the incomparable Jochen Roeder of the weird and wonderful Bell Tower Birding blog. For reasons I now can’t remember I forgot [...]

When we meet up again after a day off downroute I often get asked by the crew I’m working with if I “saw anything I hadn’t seen before” - by which they invariably mean a new species. It’s nice that people are polite enough to ask rather than just dismiss me as an eccentric of [...]

When I was in Miami last week, I went down to Key Biscayne hoping to get more photos of one of my favourite birds anywhere - the stunning Yellow-throated Warbler Dendroica dominica. As it turned out my camera stopped working after just thirty minutes in the field, and I didn’t actually see a Yellow-throated Warbler [...]

Go to any website or forum about birding - or for that matter open up any bird book or magazine - and eventually you’ll come across the term ‘LBJ’. Often loosely tossed into the discussion with a dismissive “It was just another LBJ”, there’s rarely much information to tell you just what an ‘LBJ’ actually [...]

Palm Warbler Dendroica palmarum
Central Park, New York and Crandon Park, Miami
Despite a name redolent of balmy islands and coconuts, the Palm Warbler Dendroica palmarum winters farther north than most other warblers (primarily in the southern United States and northern Caribbean) and breeds in boggy forests - especially boggy spruce forests - across northern North America [...]

Corey’s great report about his visit to the Adirondacks used the word ’skulking’, which reminded both him and Mike of a post I wrote a while back which discussed the meaning of several words us birders regularly use to describe birds that are hard to see. As you’re transferring everything over from your old blog, [...]

Yellow Warbler Dendroica petechia
Toronto, Canada. May 18 2006.

A familiar species in wetland habitats over much of eastern North America Yellow Warblers actually have an extraordinarily broad distribution for a warbler species and show great geographical variation: according to the Cornell website more than 40 recognized subspecies form three general groups that range from the northern [...]

“Myrtle” Yellow-rumped Warblers Dendroica coronata coronata
15 May 2007, Mont Royal, Montreal, Canada

One of the commonest and most widespread of the dendroica, the Yellow-rumped Warbler Dendroica coronata has two distinct populations: the western “Audubon’s Warbler.” (D. c. audubonii) breeds from northern British Columbia and northern Manitoba, south to northern Mexico, and in the East the “Myrtle [...]

A beautiful spring day began in Woodside, Queens, with coffee, a shower, a drive to Flushing to drop off Daisy at the library (haha, law-student), and then Hempstead Lake State Park.
Warblers! Black-and-white, Northern Parula, Palm, Pine, and tons of Yellow-rumps! The Northern Parula, a brilliant male singing on occasion, foraged high up in [...]

The Golden-cheeked Warbler (Dendroica chrysoparia) is one of the United States less accessible avian species. The golden-cheek closely resembles its cousin, the Black-throated Green Warbler, but its coloration is high contrast black, white, and brilliant yellow. This lovely little wood warbler winters in Mexico and Central America, migrating only as far north as a [...]

Looking for Regional Specialities, North of Pretoria
03 March 2007

I’ve been birding in South Africa many times - particularly around Johannesburg/Pretoria - but have been acutely aware for a while that without good local knowledge I was never going to find some of the region’s really difficult local specialities and tricky “LBJs” (those hard to find [...]

African Reed Warbler Acrocephalus baeticatus
Marievale Nature Reserve, Gauteng, South Africa. 11 January 2006
 
The African Reed Warbler is common, summer breeding inter-African migrant to Gauteng. The first birds arrive in August, with the main mass of breeding birds arriving in September. After breeding, numbers drop off gradually with most birds having departed by the last week [...]