Forest Park’s waterhole is known as a great place to see lots of wood-warblers without having to walk for miles or suffer from “warbler neck” because you are looking up into the canopy too much. At the waterhole the birds come to you; you just have to patiently wait for them and eventually they come in for a bath or a drink. So it was with the Orange-crowned Warbler this weekend. One wintered in Forest Park this year and I had managed to get brief glimpses of it in December but nothing since, despite numerous observers seeing it in around the park. Then, after I left the waterhole on Saturday I heard through the birder grapevine that it had shown up at the waterhole and basically made itself at home, singing and flying around and foraging for a couple of hours!
Sunday found me with no choice but to try and see the Vermivora celata, normally considered a rarity on the east coast in spring, for myself. Within twenty minutes of being at the waterhole the bird made an appearance, but I wanted pictures. It took over an hour and a half, but, finally, it foraged in front of me twice, and I took well over 200 pictures of it. The best are below. Had the light been better they could have been great, but I’m still pretty happy to get shots like these of such a cool little wood-warbler.
That’s a beautifully patterned bird and a typo in the bird’s scientific name!
🙂
Oops, thanks, and fixed!
Good morning, Corey!
Now sit down and have a cup of coffee first…
😉
It’s easy to forget how sharp that bird is with its smart gray hood when you only see them in fall. Nice shots!
Stupid Forest Park water hole, gets all the good warblers.
Very nice spring bird indeed: back in New Jersey, I eventually saw more O-c’s in February than in May! And those gray-hooded eastern birds are very snazzy, and very unlike the bright green ones I’m used to now.