Wednesday, April 22, 2009

New arrivals for Earth Day

I've been birding Busiek State Forest south of Ozark fairly regularly this spring. Today I had two new warbler species: Blue winged and Prairie, along with American Redstart, Yellow throated Warbler, Northern Parula, Ovenbird, Louisiana Waterthrush, Black and White Warbler, Yellow rumped Warbler, and Kentucky Warbler. Thought I heard a Cerulean, but it turned out to be variation on a theme by N. Parula.

I couldn't catch the Blue-winged in a photo, but did get a few shots of other warblers to share.
Northern ParulaNorthern Parula

Anyone know the name of the blue flower?
Rufous sided Towhee (female)

Prairie Warbler

3 comments:

noflickster said...

So I'm not the only one who has fallen for a parula imitating a Cerulean!

Beautiful shots of the warblers, can't wait for them to arrive. We had snow flurries this AM so they're not missing much.
-Mike (in NY)

Greg said...

Mike,
Yeah, I think they're tricky until I hear my first true Cerulean of the season, and then I can hone in on the call pretty well.
Good birding!

noflickster said...

Now that the floodgates have opened here in NY I'll be searching for a Cerulean to tune my ears. I think the flower you asked about is in the genus Oenothera (not sure of the species).

Cheers,
Mike