I was looking through some of the images I took in August and came across this photo of an Orange-crowned Warbler foraging in the Wasatch Mountains and realized I hadn’t processed or shared it yet.
Orange-crowned Warbler foraging in the Wasatch Mountains – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1/1000, ISO 800, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light
I’m in a bit of a funk because I am missing the birds of summer and it hasn’t seemed to get quite cold enough for some of the migrants that come in with cooler weather because it hasn’t been cold enough to bring them in or to make the ones that have arrived less skittish. The high temp here yesterday was 74°F which is about 14 degrees warmer than normal and today’s temp is supposed to be the same. It doesn’t feel cold enough for this time of the year to me and I bet it feels the same to the birds.
It is also the time of the year when the weather forecasters seemed to get the forecast wrong more than they do right. Yesterday morning was supposed to be clear to partly cloudy up in Box Elder County and it wasn’t which made the long trip up there and back sort of depressing because of all the clouds and poor lighting conditions. This morning was supposed to be clear and it isn’t going to be because I can see clouds moving in quite quickly. I had hoped to get out to find birds to photograph this morning but that looks less and less likely to happen.
But if I stay home I can answer some emails where the replies are long overdue and perhaps even get some of my overwhelming backlog of culling done.
This Orange-crowned Warbler appears to be an adult of the orestera subspecies but I could be wrong about that. Sibley’s only shows two subspecies and AllAboutBirds.org lists four with the orestera in the Rocky Mountains and the Great Basin. Like most of the Orange-crowned Warblers I saw in August this one was foraging in serviceberry shrubs for insects and feeding on the juicy serviceberries. A little bit of the berry juice can be seen on the tip of its bill in this photo. I don’t have many images of Orange-crowned Warblers in my portfolio so I am always happy to have them in my viewfinder.
The weather is supposed to get cooler starting tomorrow and that could help bring more birds into my view, I hope so.
Life is good.
Mia
Click here to view more of my Orange-crowned Warbler photos plus facts and information about this species.
My iPhone camera died over the weekend, all views blurry, wouldn’t focus. I went to Apple store today & they replaced my camera….for free…YEAH!!!
Very pretty picture.
Echoing Marty. On both counts.
What a beauty!
Sorry they’re messing around with your phone — that stinks!
Great image of an Orange-crowned Warbler. Man, one can see why Fall Warblers can be so difficult to ID.
Lovely images of orange crowned warbler! Thank you. Sorry to hear of phone problems. Mine recently went in the drink.