Palm Warbler
Hi everyone! Here's a story for ya.
Yesterday afternoon, we went for our weekly Sunday walk. If you're catching on with all of our Sunday rituals, you'll notice we have quite a few. They're fairly similar each week, however this walk was far from it.
It was bitter cold. Almost like the week before Thanksgiving cold. That's how it felt to me anyway. If you're from New England you know that wildlife sort of disappears at that time of year and finds somewhere to hunker down for the winter. Well it's not November, it's mid-April and frankly it's pretty confusing. Confusing enough that..well let me tell me where we were.
We still walk down the same road as the one in the Rindge post. Since that post, it's been quiet and sort of devoid of life. Every week I would bring my camera, and nothing. So this week, I decided not to bring it. You see where this is going.
We walked about a hundred meters down the road to something spectacular. There were all these yellow birds covering the road and trees surrounding us. What were they doing there? How many of them were there? What were they?
We still don't know what they were doing there, but we think there were about fifty of them and they were Palm Warblers.
You can probably imagine what we looked like. Levi was trying to figure out what species of bird they were, Anouk was trying to figure out what the birds would taste like, and I was wondering why on God's green earth I didn't bring my camera. Never again.
So we rushed back to grab my camera, and this time let Anouk warm up at the apartment. We jumped in my car with the longest lens I own, and drove back to the trail head. I couldn't stop saying "ugh what if they're not there any more!?" Well they were. But they were off of the road, and a bit further into the bog. Luckily I have some experience with birdwatching (I used to hold chickadees on my mittens) and Levi is the most patient person on this planet. We waited. And we waited.
And we waited.
So we definitely know who is more patient here. Instead of staying quiet, I had to start snapping pictures. "chikuhh" "chikuhh"
A few seconds later, the birds began moving closer to the road! And with every photo I took, closer to us. Soon it became evident that they didn't mind our presence, in fact they seemed to enjoy it.
The warblers were plucky little birds. They flitted to and fro, as if to pose for the photographs. We agreed that this was the most birds that we had seen in a single spot ever.
We stayed on the trail for 15 minutes or so, but really who knows how long we were there. It was remarkable.
And that's the story of the Palm Warblers. For a couple of wildlife-loving kids, this was something to behold. I hope you all get to have an experience like this with wild animals (docile ones of course!) and while you're at it, bring your camera. It's a pretty wonderful world out there.
Love,
Shannon
