Hunting Digital Plumes in the US and Beyond: December Delight: 8 Wintering Warbler Species in Southwest Florida and the Miami Birding Wave

Thursday, January 22, 2015

December Delight: 8 Wintering Warbler Species in Southwest Florida and the Miami Birding Wave

[Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, FL. December 2014]

Southwest Florida has an active and flourishing birding community that includes both full- and part-time residents engaged in the infinitely rewarding recreational obsession known as Birding. This vibrant community is active in a lot of different ways:

Birding Clubs: Lee County Bird Patrol, Caloosa Bird Club

Email Bird Line: SWFlorida Birdline
Facebook: SW Florida Bird Alert
Birding Blogs: Bob Pelkey, France Paulsen, Tom Obrock, The Stokes

The above is not exhaustive and there are probably more resources than I am presently aware (please post a comment below on additional resources).

Thus, I was intrigued when I chanced upon the following Mission Statement:
<<
After ongoing conversations about the state of Miami’s birding community, several like-minded individuals decided to put words into action. We are here to stir the pot.

The Miami Birding Wave aspires to encourage the development of our community, serve as an olive branch to new and established birders, and shape the image of the birding culture in the Magic City.
>>

Indeed, it appears what's already happening in SW Florida now appears to be organically taking root on the other side of Alligator Alley and the result is the Miami Birding Wave (contact Alex Harper). A quick browse through this website and it becomes evident that the protagonists of this birding revitalization movement have rapidly accomplished some really cool stuff: chasing rarities (Key West Quail Dove), conducting birding blitzes (128 species in the Miami metro area in a day) and more.

What caught this blogger's eye, however, was a recent post by young birder Carlos Sanchez on how 20 is par for the course for wintering warblers in the Miami area -- that's an astounding number! Of course, SW Florida can best this number in Spring migration but for wintering warblers, this number is hard to beat. Based on personal experience, SW Florida offers the following 10 wintering warblers reliably:

Pine Warbler
Prairie Warbler
Palm Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
Myrtle Warbler
Northern Parula
Ovenbird
Common Yellowthroat
Yellow-throated Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler

With 2 more possible: American Redstart and Northern Waterthrush. However, this number is still only half of what the Miami Birding Wave are finding -- 25 species this winter including Swainson's, Worm-eating, Orange-crowned and Magnolia --Well done Miami Birding Wave!

In this blogger's recent trip to SW Florida, only the following 8 warbler species were observed -- a number, now seemingly grossly inadequate, that will surely have to be improved upon in the future!

We start with Black-and-white Warbler:

Black-and-white Warbler seen at Corkscrew Swamp

The Black-and-white is one of our most photogenic warblers. Comparatively easy to spot owing to its tendency to hug tree trunks and branches, its "speed foraging" makes photography challenging.
Common Yellowthroat:

Common Yellowthroat seen at Bunche Beach

Unlike the generously visible Black-and-white Warbler, the Common Yellowthroat remains hidden in weedy areas and views are brief.

Myrtle Warbler:

Myrtle Warbler seen at Corkscrew Swamp

Demoted to subspecies status since 1973, Myrtle Warbler is now lumped with 3 other sub-species (Audubon's Warbler (Western US), Black-fronted Warbler (NW Mexico) and Goldman's Warbler (Guatemala) -- read this excellent article on the associated genetics) as the Yellow-rumped Warbler.

Northern Parula

Northern Parula seen at Corkscrew Swamp

Northern Parula is a year-round resident at Corkscrew and this male is already coming into its alternate plumage.

Prairie Warbler

Prairie Warbler seen at Corkscrew Swamp

Prairie Warbler, like the Parula, is a resident species although numbers are likely augmented by wintering migrants.

Pine Warbler:

Pine Warbler seen at Corkscrew Swamp

Pine Warblers are not infrequently encountered with Brown-headed Nuthatches and Yellow-throated Warblers at Corkscrew.

Palm Warbler:

Palm Warbler seen at Bunche Beach

Palm Warblers are on the drabbest warblers in their winter plumage and can be found foraging virtually anywhere in SW Florida -- in urban parking lots, sandy beaches, and wooded areas.

Yellow-throated:

Yellow-throated Warbler seen at Corkscrew Swamp

The Yellow-throated Warbler appears to be taking advantage of global warming by extending their summer range into the Northern reaches of the US. They were observed by this blogger for the first time at Magee Marsh last Spring.

1 comment:

Bob Pelkey said...: It's unfortunate that the number of warbler species seen on the Gulf Coast in winter can't compete with that on the Atlantic Coast. There have certainly been countless hours devoted to the numbers of species noted in the report made by Carlos Sanchez. He offers a very good article and blog. A doubling of warbler species likely to be seen in a day is quite intriguing and daunting. It is certainly fun to visit the Miami area for birding with a large number of exotic parrots still unseen personally. Another trip is long overdue. You offer another round of splendid images and fun reading material.; January 23, 2015 at 1:15 AM

What is Plume Hunting?

Plume hunting was big business in the late 1800's. Unfortunately, the dark side to the beauty of plumes led to the slaughter of millions of birds so women could wear fancy hats (Read about Plume Hunting).

Thankfully, in this age of digitization, we can capture most anything we want -- books, music, video, etc. -- digitally. And, with the advent of digital photography at the turn of the millennium, we can once again hunt for plumes -- but digitally; with none of the accompanying destruction. This blog is dedicated to capturing the beauty of nature reflected through the incredible diversity of our avifauna.

Reproduced below is ecofeminist Celia Thaxter's, "Woman’s Heartlessness" (Boston 1886; reproduced from Google Books) which was published at the time when plumes were worth their weight in gold and many species of birds were fast headed toward extinction:

WOMAN’S HEARTLESSNESS
By Celia Laighton Thaxter

When the Audubon Society was first organized, it seemed a comparatively simple thing to awaken in the minds of all bird-wearing women a sense of what their “decoration” involved. We flattered ourselves that the tender and compassionate heart of woman would at once respond to the appeal for mercy, but after many months of effort we are obliged to acknowledge ourselves mistaken in our estimate of that universal compassion, that tender heart in which we believed. Not among the ignorant and uncultivated so much as the educated and enlightened do we find the indifference and hardness that baffles and perplexes us. Not always, heaven be praised! But too often,--I think I may say in two-thirds of the cases to which we appeal. One lady said to me, “I think there is a great deal of sentiment wasted on the birds. There are so many of them, they will never be missed any more than mosquitoes. I shall put birds on my new bonnet.” This was a fond and devoted mother, a cultivated and accomplished woman. It seemed a desperate case, indeed, but still I strove with it. “Why do you give yourself so much trouble?” she asked. “They will soon go out of fashion, and there will be an end of it.” That may be,” I replied, “but fashion next year may order them back again, and how many women will have human feeling enough to refuse to wear them? It was merely waste of breath, however, and she went her way, a charnel-house of beaks and claws and bones and feathers and glass eyes upon her fatuous head.

Another, mockingly, says, “Why don’t you try to save the little fishes in the sea?” and continues to walk the world with dozens of warblers’ wings making her headgear hideous. Not one in fifty is found willing to remove at once the birds from her head, even if, languidly, she does acquiesce in the assertion that it is a cruel sin against nature to destroy them. “When these are worn out I am willing to promise not to buy any more,” is what we hear, and we are thankful, indeed, for even so much grace; but alas! birds never “wear out.” And as their wearer does not carry a placard stating their history, that they were bought last year, or perhaps given to her, and she does not intend to buy any more, her economy goes on setting the bad example, or it may be her indolence is to blame, one is as fatal as the other. Occasionally, but too rarely, we meet with a fine spirit, the fire of whose generous impulse consumes at once all selfish considerations, who recognizes the importance of her own responsibility, and whose action is swift as her thought to pluck our the murderous sign, and go forth free of its dishonor. And how refreshing is the sight of the birdless bonnet! The face beneath, no matter how plain it may be, seems to possess a gentle charm. She might have had birds, this woman, for they are cheap and plentiful enough, heaven knows! But she has them not, therefore she must wear within things infinitely precious,--namely, good sense, good taste, good feeling. Heaven bless every woman who dares turn her back on Fashion and go about thus beautifully adorned!

In one of the most widely circulated newspapers the fashionable news from Paris begins: “Birds are worn more than ever.” Birds “are worn!” Pitiful phrase! Sentence of deadly significance! “Birds are worn,”—as if that were final, as if all women must follow one another like a flock of sheep over a wall, and forget reason, forget the human heart within, forget everything but the empty pride of being “in the fashion.” Ah me, my fire-flecked oriole, watching your airy cradle from the friendly swinging elm bough, go get yourself an inky coat. Your beauty makes you but a target for the accursed gun that shatters your lovely life, quenches your delicious voice, destroys your love, your bliss, your dutiful cares, your whole beautiful being, that your dead body may disfigure some woman’s head and call all eyes to gaze at her! But no,--that will not save you. Blackbirds are not safe, they “are worn.” Carrion crows “are worn,” unsavory scavengers though they be. No matter on what they may have fed,--they “are worn.” Soar, swift sea-swallow,--I would it could be millions of miles away from the haunts of men; to the uttermost parts of the earth and the ocean carry your grace, your slender loveliness of shape, your matchless delicacy of tint and tone of color, soft, wondrous like gray cloud and silvery snow,--fly! dear and beautiful creature; seek the centre of the storm, the heart of the Arctic cold, the winter blast, they are not so unkind as—woman’s vanity. Do I not see you every day, your mocking semblance writhing as if in agony round female heads,--still and stark, sharp wings and tail pointing in stiff distress to heaven, your dried and ghastly head and beak dragged down to point to the face below, as if saying, “She did it.” The albatross of the Ancient Mariner is not more dreadful. Yesterday I saw three of you on one hat! Three terns at once, a horrible confusion of death and dismay.

Does any woman imagine these withered corpses (cured with arsenic) which she loves to carry about, are beautiful? Not so; the birds lost their beauty with their lives. Today I saw a mat woven of warblers' heads, spiked all over its surface with sharp beaks, set up on a bonnet and borne aloft by its possessor in pride! Twenty murders on one! and the face beneath bland and satisfied, for are not "Birds to be worn more than ever?" Flit, sandpiper, from the sea's margin to some loneliness remote and safe from the noble race of man! No longer in the soft May twilight call from cove to cove along the shore in notes that seem to breathe the very spirit of tender joy, of happy love, of sweet content; tones that mingle so divinely with the warm waves' murmur, with the south wind's balm, and sound in music through the dusk, long after the last crimson flash of sunset has faded from the sky year after year you come back to make your nest in the place you know and love, but you shall not live your humble, blissful, dutiful life, you shall not guard your treasured home, nor rejoice when your little ones break the silence with their first cry to you for food. You shall not shelter and protect and care for them with the same divine instinct you share with human mothers. No, some woman wants your corpse to carry on her head. You shall die that vanity, that "Fashion" may live.

I fear we no longer deserve these golden gifts of God. I would the birds could all emigrate to some friendlier planet peopled by a nobler race than ours, where they might live their sweet lives unmolested, and be treated with the respect, the consideration, and the grateful love which are their due. For we have almost forfeited our right to the blessing of their presence.

But still we venture to hope for a better future, still the Audubon and other societies work with heart and soul, to protect and save them, and we trust yet to see the day when women, one and all, will look upon the wearing of birds in its proper light,--namely, as a sign of heartlessness and a mark of ignominy and reproach.

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Thursday, January 22, 2015

December Delight: 8 Wintering Warbler Species in Southwest Florida and the Miami Birding Wave

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