first Canada Warbler of the season

A Canada Warbler appeared this morning in a bush in front of the same oak tree where Least Flycatcher appeared yesterday. This was a young bird with a gray head and only a faint necklace. In fact, when I first saw it flashing its bright yellow underparts in the leaves I thought it was a Nashville Warbler (both birds have large white bright eye rings and yellow underneath). But I could soon see the large size and the necklace, confirming that it was a Canada.

Canadas have not been very much in evidence in the past year or two so it was nice to see this bird working the underbrush in blithe ignorance of the fact that it is no long a Wilsonia. Yes, sad to say, the warbler genus named for Audubon's great predecessor Alexander Wilson, is no more and both Canada and Wilson's Warbler have been put in the genus Cardellina along with (of all birds) the Red-faced and Red Warblers! Almost all the traditional warbler genera have disappeared in a drastic reshuffling of the taxonomy of these birds but, fortunately, all the North American species and their common names survived!

The Canada had campany. A Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher was active in the same bush, a loudly chinking Northern Waterthrush flew in from a nearby bush and two young Common Yellowthroats -- undoubtedly the same ones that have been hanging around together -- were also in the area. Both of the young Green Herons were perched in the little outlying group of half-dead Red Cedars (their favorite perch) and they hung in there until I was almost underneath. But the best show was put on by no less than three Belted Kingfishers who were disputing the rights to a dead limb with an excellent view of the pond which was brimming full of water and bait fish at its early morning high tide mark.

Eric Salzman