I went virtually the entire month of July without seeing but one warbler, and that has continued into mid-August!  UNBELIEVABLE!  There’s been some kind of serious problem with our usual warblers (Wilson’s, Yellow-rumped, Orange-crowned and Yellow) this spring/summer.

On August 12, 2018, at about 6:20pm, I was sitting very near our watercourse topping it off and watering a few of the plants around the yard.  The spray usually attracts some birds and I noticed an active bird on the edge of the yard that kept disappearing into madrones and bushes.  I couldn’t get a good sustained look at the bird… It resembled a Black-capped chickadee from a distance (without any optical enhancement) but I realized that it probably wasn’t a chickadee.

I made a fortuitous decision to run inside and get my camera, and when I returned with my telephoto lens the bird was still in the yard (fate was working with me this day!) and I immediately saw it was a Black-throated Gray warbler, one of the rarest warblers we get here on Cap Sante.

The bird made three separate trips to the watercourse to bathe, making liberal use of all the staging objects I have around the water.  As I started taking photos, from as close to the watercourse as I ever get, I abandoned my usual practice of waiting patiently until the bird strikes a good pose to take a photo.  I just began taking photos whenever the bird was in my viewfinder.  I soon had 95 images, 46 of which I retained!

For comparison, here is a photo of a Black-capped chickadee I took earlier in the afternoon.

And here are a few of the photos I took of the Black-throated Gray warbler, apparently a juvenile female.

Can this be the start of the fall migration?