The first warbler week
For most of March, spring here is a rumour. The willows turn faintly gold, the frogs start up in the ditches, and there are a few more song sparrows singing than there were. But the woods still feel empty.
Then, usually some time in mid-April, a warm southerly night brings in the first real wave of migrants, and the riverside trees are suddenly full of movement. This year it happened on the night of the 14th.
I walked the river path the next morning with binoculars and very low expectations. Within the first hundred yards there were yellow-rumped warblers everywhere, dozens of them, flicking out of the alders to catch insects over the water and flashing the yellow patch above the tail that gives them their name. Orange-crowned warblers were singing their flat, falling trill from the willows.
Over the following days the list grew:
- Wednesday: a Wilson's warbler, bright yellow with a neat black cap, low in the blackberry tangle.
- Thursday: a black-throated grey warbler high in a fir, found only because of its buzzy song.
- Friday: the first common yellowthroat of the year, calling witchety-witchety from the reeds by the bridge.
- Saturday: a flock of mixed warblers and kinglets moving through the cottonwoods like a single restless animal.
Warbler week rewards slowness. Stand still by the right tree for ten minutes and the tree comes to you.
The hardest part is the neck. Warblers love the top of the canopy, and the cottonwoods are tall. By Saturday I had developed what birders call warbler neck, a stiff ache from looking straight up for too long. I have started lying on my back on the bench by the bridge, which gets odd looks from dog walkers but is much more comfortable.
I am not a fast or expert birder. I miss plenty, and I still confuse some of the songs. But I love the sense of the whole continent moving north over a few weeks, and the fact that some of these small birds spent the winter in Mexico and have just turned up, on schedule, in the same trees as last year.
By next week the leaves will be out properly, and the birds will be much harder to see. For now the woods are full, and I am getting up early.