American warblers in spring.... just those words are usually enough to induce misty-eyed dream sequences, and there'll likely be more featured in this ongoing series in 2019. For starters, here's the inquisitive, noisy, exquistely plumaged Prairie Warbler, a summer migrant of scrubby fields and forest edge habitats to the eastern half of the US. These photos are of a bird on territory at one of my favourite birding spots near to my in-law's homestead, way out in the sticks of Western Massachusetts - a wide, scrubby, messy 'channel' through the woods, cleared for telegraph pylons and providing great habitat and opportunities for birding.
Prairie Warblers are pretty much at the northern limit of their breeding range in Western Mass, have a beautifully simple song - for European birders, imagine a Yellowhammer on fast-forward - and are one of the more tame and nosy of the warblers breeding there.
