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| Orange-crowned Warbler with Eastern Bluebird |
Confined to quarters due to the high risk of hypothermia, I spent a chunk of the morning watching the birds at our feeders, glad that yesterday I had the foresight to fill them up and replace the very popular suet cylinder. Lately, nothing new has showed up, but I was kidding around with myself that maybe the fierce winds would blow in something novel. Glancing at the suet cage I saw what I at first took to be a Pine Warbler--hey, something new for the year--but when I looked more closely, I saw that it lacked wing bars and was dull overall--
Orange-crowned Warbler! For the past month a neighbor up the street has been reporting Orange-crown Warbler at her feeder on eBird, but, frankly, I didn't take it too seriously, not being really confident in her identification skills. But now the chances of her being correct are obviously a lot higher. Maybe the wild winds
did blow the bird downhill to us.
Orange-crowned Warbler is a new backyard bird for us--#102 in 14 1/2 years. The bird flitted from a nearby cedar tree to the cylinder a few times, spending enough time on the cylinder for me to get some bad photos of it and for Shari to add it her year list. But I'm afraid the warbler couldn't compete with the big bully starlings that are chewing their way through the suet. I haven't seen it since this morning. Still awaiting a Pine Warbler. (The reason the suet cylinder is orange itself is because it is impregnated with hot chili peppers to discourage squirrels, which make death defying leaps from nearby trees, bypassing our baffles. Squirrels' tongues are burned by the pepper--birds don't have those taste receptors)
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