Black-and-white warblers sound like squeaky wheels when they sing. Their song can be ubiquitous in the New England woods depending on the time of year.
Singing in the spring: Black-and-white warbler
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Author Archives: Chris Bosak
For the Birds: A not-so-good first of the year
Birdwatching firsts are usually good things.
A new birdwatcher sees a scarlet tanager for the first time. The first warblers show up in the spring. An evening grosbeak visits a feeder for the first time. (I’m still waiting for that one, by the way.) Witnessing a unique behavior, like an eagle harassing an osprey into dropping a fish, for the first time is always a thrill.
But not all firsts are cause for celebration. Some firsts are best avoided if at all possible. I was reminded of this last week when I woke up and found this year’s first deer tick embedded in my thigh.
I should have known better, of course. But there I was tromping through waist-high grass trying to get a better look at a swamp sparrow. It will be okay, I thought, it’s still early in the season, and it hasn’t really warmed up yet. Every year, it takes this lesson for me to realize that ticks emerge before I think they will.
I returned to the car after my unsuccessful attempt to close in on the swamp sparrow. As I sat down and got ready to turn the key, I noticed a deer tick on my pants, its tiny black-and-red body slowly crawling as it searched for a way to get to my blood.
Continue readingSinging in the Spring: Field sparrow
Here’s the second installment of Singing in the Spring. The field sparrow looks more like a typical sparrow than the previously featured eastern towhee, but a close look reveals a handsome bird with subtle beauty.
Singing in the spring: Eastern towhee
Here’s the start of a new birdsofnewengland.com mini series called Singing in the Spring. It will feature, all together now, birds singing in the spring. The posts will appear randomly throughout this spring.
I’ll kick it off with an eastern towhee. Although a member of the sparrow family, which features mostly small brownish birds, the towhee is larger and much more decorated.
For the Birds: Good time to think about preventing bird window strikes
I’ve had the unpleasant experience of finding dead birds under windows several times in my life.
Whether at home, work or elsewhere, it’s always a sad sight to see a lifeless bird that has struck a window and become a statistic. It is estimated that more than a billion birds die each year in window collisions. That’s a billion with a b, as my dad used to say.
It’s even more horrific if you think about the bird’s final moment. One second, the bird is migrating, searching for food, fleeing from a predator, or simply going from point A to point B, and the next second, it’s dead on the ground. That’s if the bird is “lucky.” The unlucky ones are the ones that strike the window, fall to the ground and die painfully and slowly.
Continue readingPalm warbler kind of spring
Palm warblers have been by far the most visible spring migrants on my walks lately. Along with pine warblers and yellow-rumped warblers, palm warblers are one of the earliest returning warblers to New England. If you see a small yellow bird pumping its tail constantly, it’s probably a palm warbler.
For the Birds: American black ducks in the spotlight
The American black duck is, in my opinion, one of the more underrated birds in New England.
While it is true that black ducks are not the most exciting or colorful ducks in New England, I think the black duck is often overlooked because a lot of people assume it is a mallard. Mallards, of course, are extremely common and tame. Black ducks are not as common and certainly not as tame.
Differentiating an American black duck from a female mallard is one of the more common difficult identifications to make. It is up there with the house vs. purple finch and the sharp-shinned vs. Cooper’s hawk.
Continue readingTree swallow brightens up drizzly morning
I saw this guy on a cable wire road barrier on the way into work this morning. He, and other tree swallows present, made the drizzly morning commute that much better.
For the Birds: Warblers come early
It’s an early start to the warbler season for me.
I was walking at my usual patch on March 31 when I heard a familiar trill-like song from the top of a tall white pine. A fast-paced trilling usually means it is a junco, chipping sparrow, or pine warbler. All three of these birds are in New England now, so unless you are an expert at identifying birds by song, it is best to find the bird and get visual confirmation.
Like most warblers, pine warblers do not sit still for very long, so it took only a few seconds of searching to find the tiny bird moving among the branches. It was indeed a pine warbler, a mostly yellow bird with white wing bars on gray wings.
Pine warblers are always the first, or at least one of the first, warblers to show up in New England each spring. I usually do not find them until a few days into April, but this year, my first warbler sighting came on the last day of March.
Coincidentally, I saw my first chipping sparrow of the spring last week as well. Yes, spring migration is underway.
Continue readingA few more early warblers
My first warbler (a pine warbler) showed up on March 31. Here are numbers two and three for the year: yellow-rumped warbler and palm warbler, both seen today (Friday, April 11, 2025). More to come in the weeks ahead!
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Birds of New England.com 