Catch of the Day

Catch of the Day: an immature Hooded Warbler at the junction of the old right of way and the entrance to the Samuel & Frances Salzman Preserve: a chunky, big-headed bird, uniformly yellow underneath, olive above with a distinct hooded pattern around a black eye and a yellow face, constant tail flicking showing white outer tail feathers and a fairly constant chip note that somehow sounded both flat and sharp (in the common, not musical, sense of those words).

The familiar warblers were also present: Common Yellowthroat, Northern Waterthrush and American Redstart.

And all the usual herons were also present this morning: Great Blue, Green, Yellow-crowned Night-Heron and Great Egret as well as the resident female Belted Kingfisher. It's odd, but the supposedly less common Yellow-crowned Night-Heron is a homey -- I see it almost every day at low tide -- while the Black-crowned seems to visit but rarely these days.

Eric Salzman