The last bird of the evening...a spunky Yellow Warbler!

Photographing my last bird of the evening on the last evening of my trip made me feel a little sad. The phenomenon of spring migration along Lake Erie is addictive, and I knew tomorrow it would be very hard to walk away from the Magee Marsh boardwalk and the "easy pickin's" of its colorful neotropical songbirds. The only consolation was my farewell bird was a specific male Yellow Warbler that had been tugging at my heart all week. You may be wondering how it was possible to separate one male Yellow Warbler from the hundreds that sing and flit along on the boardwalk! Simple...he was the mate of a sweet little female who had been working nonstop to build her nest. This little male had to be the most dedicated Valentino on the boardwalk, serenading the industrious female with endless rounds of robust and lively song! I enjoyed watching the couple and learned a lot. Every now and then the female would abandon her work and the two would take off together, flying like mad through the branches of a huge old tree just across the boardwalk from her nest, but she'd never play around too long. Soon she was back to work, scouring the deep crevices in the craggy bark of that old tree looking for food, but mostly looking for spider silk that she would take back to her nest...

...my parting shot of the male Yellow Warbler (Dendroica petechia) I had grown fond of this week.  

The large black eyes on the plain yellow faces of the Yellow Warblers get me every time. I never grow tired of seeing one of our most common nesting warblers. Their song is loud and cheery too, and the chestnut streaking on their flanks and chest is striking...

...the hard-working female Yellow Warbler looks like she's resting here, but she's not. She had just deposited a small clump of spider web and was busy tamping it down with her body. Every time she would add something to the nest, she would sit in the nest and move around, molding the small cup to her body.

...again, she's working, not resting, as she molds the nest to fit her body. She was especially keen on gathering bits of spider's silk she found in the deep crevices of the bark on the nearby old gnarly tree.  

The shrubby tree she had chosen for her nest hung out over the water, and I had to shoot through about eight feet of leaves plus the distance on the boardwalk--in other words, these photos are cropped down to the hilt.

...till next year Mr. Yellow!

Learn more about migration at Magee Marsh...
If you want to learn more about Magee Marsh and spring migration along Lake Erie, click here for an article titled "Magee; Anatomy of a Migrant Hotspot," by Kenn Kaufman. I stumbled across the article earlier on the American Birding Association blog, and it explains everything that is going on at this birding hotspot!

...I will probably be blogging about The Biggest Week in American Birding and this trip for the next three weeks, but don't worry, it won't get boring. I have a lot of cool bird photos (and other critters) and learned a lot too...

p.s. Did you see the Kirtland's Warbler today?
If you want to see a fantastic photo of the beautiful and rare Kirtland's Warbler seen on the boardwalk today, click here to go to Bobby Harrison's blog. Bobby was in the right place at the right time, and the ever-drooled-after K-bird practically flew in front of his lens and posed!