ADDICTED to Warblers!

[Loupey]

Wife and I spent this past weekend at Magee Marsh - my second vist, wife's first.

What a spectacle! We were impressed all around - the numbers and variety of birds, the numbers of ever-so-friendly people, the weather - good times for everyone.

We heard that this may be the peak time with anywhere from 1 week to 2 weeks left. I will definitely go back once during this week and the family over the weekend (big park party weekend btw). Hope to see anyone from these boards who might be in the area or traveling through.


It's a photographer's playground and nature-lovers paradise. Thanks again, Paulnj, for letting me know about this place.

First the warblers:

#1 - Yellow-Rumped
#2 & #3 - Common Yellowthroat
#4 - Prothonotary
#5 - Black-Throated Green

[Loupey]

A few non-warblers of course. (scarlet tanager, house wren, and vireo of some sort?)

A few species were definitely the crowd favorites (the scarlet tanger, prothonotary warbler, black-throated blue warbler, and screech owl). And it was easy to spot them as there would be a mass of people/photographers nearby

Wish I had a better shot of the tanager. But they were few and always faaaar away. So this shot is cropped and the reds never look right in the bright sunlight on digital.

[victorhuang20]

as always, awesome pics! which body did you use, and did you get to try out that lens?!

[retroactiv]

Crisp, Clear, great looking shots of beautiful birds. #4 is my favorite out of all of them that you posted, the posture of the bird along with the look of the water I think sets this shot apart from your other great looking shots.

[Loupey]

as always, awesome pics! which body did you use, and did you get to try out that lens?!

Thanks, Victor. Yeah, these were all with that lens

Tried it with the 2x TC as well. But trying to find the super-hyper buggers at 20'~25' through bushes with a 1000mm was maddening!


btw, you going to post any conservatory shots?

[Loupey]

Crisp, Clear, great looking shots of beautiful birds. #4 is my favorite out of all of them that you posted, the posture of the bird along with the look of the water I think sets this shot apart from your other great looking shots.

Chris, thank you very much for looking/commenting. That warbler was very difficult to get a clean shot. I'm still going through files and I think I have a few more of it that I'll try to post later. Thanks again.

[paulnj]

LOOKING GREAT, but the last isn't a vireo, but a ruby crowned kinglet.

I got 19 species of warbler yesterday with a friend, 7 today at work in one pinoak(canada, chestnutsided, redstart, bay breasted, nashville, parula and B&W) IN 5 MINUTES.

Migration is in full swing .

[Knight]

Great series Loupey love them all i must be looking in the wrong places for Warblers lol i cant find them

[paulnj]

3 weeks and they will be in canada on territory singing like sanatra

[AgingEyes]

3 weeks and they will be in canada on territory singing like sanatra

I might have seen them already yesterday. I saw a couple of people shooting something from about 60 feet away with some big lenses. I took a look at the direction they were pointing their camera at and I saw a couple of yellow...either small birds or butterflies flying around a small tree, kind of chasing each other here and there. I was learning to shoot hummingbirds so I didn't bother to find out what exactly the yellow flying objects were.

[mn shutterbug]

That's a great addiction to have. That's a very impressive series.

[Dylan8i]

very nice!


but how many of you have seen a cerulean warbler? How about their nests? i have a picture of the latter (with a quarter for size comparison) ill have to look for it. the birds themselves where almost to small in a spotting scope, so no pics

good chance i'll go see golden winged warblers sometime this summer to.... the bonuses to working in the biology field.

[scott-devon]

Beautiful series Loupey.

[Loupey]

Thanks for all the comments, guys!

I will definitely be heading back a couple times before it is all over. I'll post any new images to this thread.

[victorhuang20]

Yea, I will be posting soon, I am actually post processing some right now, I haven't been able to do much because its like midterms every single darn week for me, stupid quarter systems...

[Loupey]

OK, third trip up to Magee Marsh. I think I'm understanding the technique to shooting warblers - as they hop around the trees in one direction, I hop around in the other direction until I find an open hole to shoot through

The variety was good, but the numbers were down. One birder who had helped band them recently told me that perhaps 3/4 of them had taken off across Lake Erie recently when the wind condition was optimal.

#2 - Yellow-rumped warbler
#3 - Cape May warbler
#4 - Black-and-white warbler (still trying to get a good one)
#5 - Canada warbler (uncommon? everyone was excited over this visitor)

[Loupey]

and a few more species...

#6 - Chestnut-sided warbler
#7 - Protonotary warbler (female) - still trying to get a good one of these too
#8 - American redstart eating a damselfly
#9 - Tennessee warbler (I was told) - only one I saw that day
#10 - Black-throated blue warbler - still on my list to get a clean shot

[Loupey]

and an oddity for PaulNJ

A leucistic black-throated blue? Several people told me about a sighting when I first hit the boardwalk. But it wasn't until the very end of the day that I saw it.

[paulnj]

Now that's VERY COOL!!!!

Those are some great warblers and ID's are all correct.

I searched high and low for canada, cape may and bay breasted and found zero saturday. Mind you I bird by ear and heard none!

That list is very impressive indeed.... looks similiar to my saturday list:thumbsup:

[Loupey]

...Mind you I bird by ear and heard none!...

Paul, I know you have this talent to ID birds by both sight and sound, and there was a guy there that instantly reminded me of you:

The birder that I mentioned earlier was about 30' ahead of me photographing birds when, all of a sudden, he turned to me and motioned me forward to him. He told me that "there are 4 good birds all nearby; a yellow-rumped, a cape may, redstart, and (something I forget now)". We stood there motionless for about 10 seconds and sure enough out from the bushes popped the birds he had just named. I was astonished. I can barely ID a cardinal by sound

He also mimiced the calls of at least two species and it seemed to hold the attention of at least two birds that I saw.

[paulnj]

he was "pishing" I bet which is a pissed of tufted titmouse call. screech owl calls and squeeking like a hurt bird works too.

learning the sounds of nature is a bit tough, but how many voices do you recognise on the phone or across the room?

[Loupey]

Not very many LOL!

Lets just say that the visual portion of my brain is much larger than the auditory section. While my memory is near photographic, I can't recite lyrics of most songs nor pick out background instruments on the radio. And singing is just plain scary

I'm not one to say I can't do something, so I'll work on it! :thumbsup:

[Knight]

This is gotta be the best series (Warblers) up to this date Loupey , i have never seen so many different Warblers. I gotta take my hat of to you sir well done

[AmberC]

Wow! What variety! They are all so cute!! :thumbsup:

[Loupey]

Knight and Amber - thanks for the generous words and thanks for looking.