On a whim a few of us spent last Sunday at one of my favorite birding spots - El Columpio. As we opened the car door, we heard a Mountain trogon. Saw it too. Not bad for a start.
Lots of birds around. If I could put my hands on the list at the moment, I'd let you know all of them.
The best sighting of the day, at least for me, was a new bird. I'd been watching for a Red warbler, saw one, and followed it into a tree. Well, imagine my surpise when I had two birds in my binoculars at the time. A Red warbler and something new for me.
I immediately got Hugo onto it, and it was new for him, too. Warbler-like, kinda brownish with a blue-gray facial spot. Hmmm.
Well, we didn't have to wait long for the answer to the quandry: a juvenile Red warbler. No doubt about it when an adult REWA came in to feed it. Whoa, what a treat.
I tried to find a photo of a juvenile REWA on the Internet without success. This photo is from "Warblers of the Americas, an identification guide" by Curson, Quinn, and Beadle, 1994, the only reference book in my library with a drawing of the bird. Mind you, our bird wasn't so red. It was more brownish than this drawing shows. And the facial spot was definitely more blue-gray. Hard to say how much the lighting played with the colors.
Regardless, it was a good bird to see. And, I wish I had a good digital camera to record the moment. Algun dia (one day, as they say hereabouts).
Good birding to you.
