By Karen Gleason
I was eager to get out into the field on Sunday morning, after Saturday’s much-needed rains.
I checked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) web site late Saturday and found that we’d set a rainfall record for May 2, with 2.01 inches of rain.
The Rincon on Sunday morning was a vision of newly-washed splendor. Heavy dew hung on each blade of grass, refracting the sunlight like a field of diamonds, and my footfalls were soft and quiet on the damp earth.
Red-winged Blackbirds and Northern Cardinals sang lustily from their perches in the carrizo hedge.
I wandered along the edge of a meadow and flushed a small flock of sparrows. When I looked at them through my binoculars, I saw that most of them were Clay-colored Sparrows, a species that breeds in the northern Plains states of the U.S. and in the prairie provinces of Canada.
Clay-colored Sparrows can be tricky for new birders to identify – at least they were for me. They have unmarked gray necks and neatly-patterned faces in colors of brown, tan and white. Their chests and abdomens are pale gray to white, and they will typically forage in mixed flocks while they are with us during the winter months.
After leaving the sparrows, I stood and listened for a time to the morning song of a Yellow-breasted Chat. These strange birds look more like orioles or tanagers than warblers, but chats are considered the largest of the North American warbler tribe.
Their song is strange, too, a fluid mix of chips, chortles, whistles and whoops. Sometimes it sounds like they are calling out, “Work! Work!”
I wandered among the small pecan grove at the north end of the Rincon, and a flash of yellow halfway up one of the trees caught my eye.
I looked at it through my binoculars and saw a male Yellow Warbler, a spring migrant moving through our area on his way to the species’ breeding grounds in the northern U.S. and Canada.
These are gorgeous little birds; all yellow with chestnut streaks on their chests.
I watched the warbler for some time, waiting for it to become comfortable with me standing under the tree where it was foraging and make its way around to my side, so I could take its picture.
Patience paid off, as it typically does, and I got a photo I was happy with.
By the time I had finished my morning jaunt, my new Merrell hiking shoes were soaked, as were the bottoms of my jeans, but I was really glad to have seen the Yellow Warbler.
