Bright spots in the gloom

Weather and birds are funny and don’t always do what you might expect. After a balmy week, the temperature on Saturday morning was a chilly 20 degrees and the day was overcast and gloomy. Sunday proved to be a bit warmer but was still as gloomy, so my expectations for a Sunday morning birding run were not high. But the time of year is right, despite questionable weather, and I added 7 species to my 2010 list—blue-winged teal, great egret, double-crested cormorant, pied-billed grebe, tree swallows, rough-winged swallows and the first butterbutts of the season.

Butterbutts are a birder’s slang term for yellow-rumped warblers, which are usually the first warbler to appear in the spring. In this area of the hemisphere, they are the Myrtle race or subspecies of yellow-rumpeds. For some time, the two were thought to be a separate species, but not all that many years ago they were lumped in with the western birds and are, for the moment at least, considered a single species.

Mud and rain are still the dominant barriers to deep woods forays and better photographs around my cabin. I did manage to get my car into and out of a muddy two-lane access road on Sunday morning, but I was a bit lucky on the getting out part.

This morning the fog was so dense that I couldn’t see where I was walking, with or without my headlamp. Dog uncharacteristically hung back, too. I don’t think he could see any better. We are both hoping for improving weather, though we aren’t likely to see any before late on Tuesday.