Crowned

On Jan 2nd most people had the day off, but I decided I'd head in to work and get some quiet time in the office to clean up email and get some uninterrupted work time.  At lunch I headed down to Bayfront Park to see if any of the rare warblers were still hanging around.  This time I put my bike in the back of the car instead of spending 20 minutes walking the almost 2km from the parking lot to where the birds were being seen regularly.  I got their quicker, but that didn't help me to see the Black-throated Gray Warbler.  So far I hadn't had any luck seeing this bird, so I thought to try and get a better picture of the Gnatcatcher I had seen  every time I had visited the trail lately.  But I wasn't to see this little bird either.  I did see Stephen, a gentleman I met during the Hamilton Christmas Bird Count on Boxing Day, and it was nice to meet his wife who had also joined him in search of the Black-throated Warbler.  They had just missed seeing it by 10 minutes or so according to others who had found the bird previously.

Orange-crowned Warbler eating berries.

There were reports of other warblers on the Marina side of the park, so I headed out that way and soon found two excited birders/photographers who were following two Orange-crowned Warblers and a Yellow-rumped Warbler around a clump of trees and golden rod.  I saw the latter bird fly around a bit, but never got close enough to actually really see it.  I did get to see one of the Orange-crowned Warblers and got two brief, poorly lit pictures on a cold and overcast day.  The Orange-crowned Warbler is more native to the western part of the continent, so it's neat to see one in our neck of the woods.  The orange crown on these birds is rarely visible, and mostly visible from the back of the bird as the under feathers on the head are where the orange colouring is hidden.

Orange-crowned Warbler

And I promised I'd post some of the pictures from Bayfront Park  after the bird count - mostly because my son Andrew gets to guest appear with some of his bird pictures he took - he's looking forward to this with great anticipation. ;)