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.
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.
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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!
Continue readingPine warblers and palm warblers are typically the earliest warblers to arrive in New England in the spring. This year, the pines showed earlier than usual (at least in my estimation.) I found at least two pine warblers yesterday (March 31, 2025) at Huntington State Park in southern Connecticut. Here’s hoping the rest of the spring migration is as good.
Drop me a line and let me know what you’re seeing out there.
It was one of the better spring migrations I’ve had in a long time. I got out there more than in previous years and visited a greater variety of places.
The big week, of course, was the visit to Erie, Pennsylvania, during the peak of the migration season. I was there for my niece’s wedding but arrived several days in advance of the event to stay with my brother and visit Presque Isle State Park, a birding hot spot. We saw over 70 species of birds over the three separate visits.
I also hit my local New England spots several times a week during migration, starting in late March and going into June. It’s always interesting to see how the spring migration starts with a trickle of very few species and peaks with several dozen species all moving through at once.
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When the peak of your favorite hobby lasts only a few weeks each year, you better make the most of that time.
For birdwatchers, that is spring. Specifically, the last week of April and the first two weeks of May. Of course, the spring migration started many weeks ago and will last into June, but the sweet spot is those few weeks.
As luck would have it this year, my niece planned her wedding for mid-May. The wedding was held in my old hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania. I didn’t know it when I was growing up, but Presque Isle State Park in Erie is one of the top birdwatching destinations in the country. Presque Isle is a peninsula jutting into Lake Erie and, in addition to the many birds that nest there, several others use the land as a stopover before crossing over into Canada.
Instead of going home for a long weekend, I took the week off and made a vacation of it. I visited the park for several hours on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Each day I saw something a little different. On Monday’s walk, I saw 51 different species. I did not keep track on Tuesday’s walk as I wanted to focus on photographing some of the warblers.
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Here’s a magnolia warbler I encountered during a recent gray morning.
Here are a few more shots of the Louisiana waterthrush I saw the other day. Waterthrushes look like thrushes and even have thrush in their name, but they are actually warblers.
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I saw a yellow-rumped warbler, a few pine warblers and several palm warblers on my last bird walk. That can only mean one thing: time for my annual spring warbler column.
The aforementioned warblers are the earliest to arrive in New England in the spring. The rest will follow shortly.
But first, what is a warbler? A warbler is a small Neotropical songbird. Many are colorful but not all of them. Yellow is a common color among warblers, but white, black, orange, brown and tan are also found frequently on warblers. While some spend their winters in the southern part of the U.S., most migrate farther to Central or South America, or the islands south of the U.S. A few stragglers may be spotted in New England during the winter, but it’s not common.
Warblers breed throughout the U.S., mostly in the northern states and into Canada. By late September and into October, warblers do their southward migration. In April and May, they pass through the area again — this time in their fresh spring plumage.
Many warblers will remain in New England to raise families, and others will head farther north. Yellow warblers and common yellowthroats, for me anyway, are the species most commonly seen during the summer raising their families. I’ve also found the breeding spots of American redstart, ovenbird, pine warbler and a few other species.
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Another warbler season is in the books.
Sure, there are still the late-migrant stragglers that will be seen into mid-June and, of course, the ones that will nest and stay with us all summer, but the peak of the warbler season has, sadly, passed.
For me personally, I did not see a huge variety of warblers, but I did see plenty of the more common warbler species over the last few weeks.
The warbler sightings, for me, started in late April with a walk that yielded dozens of yellow-rumped warblers. Over the last few weeks, it has been largely blue-winged warblers, common yellowthroats and American redstarts. In the last week or so, yellow warblers have been showing up more and more on my walks and are becoming the dominant warbler species.
Those are also the main warblers that will nest in my area of New England. Each part of New England has its common nesting warblers and, thankfully, we will get to see them throughout the summer. If we are lucky, we’ll see their youngsters too.
It has been fun over the last couple of years getting to know the American redstart and blue-winged warbler better. I found a few places where redstarts nest, and I visit there frequently in late spring into early summer. Redstarts are, in my opinion anyway, one of the more interesting-looking birds and remind me of Halloween every time I see one. The black and orange coloring is unique in the warbler world. At least among the ones we see in New England.
Blue-winged warblers are largely yellow, like many warblers that nest or pass through New England, but their unique, black eye straight gives them a different type of look – almost like a little bandit. Blue-winged warblers are also unique and fairly easy to find from their insect-like call. It appears to be a rather subtle call, but it can be heard from far away, especially during an early morning walk when the world is still quiet and calm.
Yellow warblers and common yellowthroats will nest throughout New England. In both cases, the birds are usually heard before they are seen. That is if they are seen at all, as they like to hang out in brushy areas and remain hidden if possible. Yellowthroats often like to stay low to the ground in their skulking.
I’ve focused on warblers in this column, but I also had some good luck finding other colorful songbirds such as rose-breasted grosbeak, indigo bunting and scarlet tanager. I watched a female rose-breasted grosbeak collect nesting material a few weeks ago. It’s good to know they will be sticking around and raising young here.
With spring migration mostly behind us, what’s next for birders? Birds won’t be as noisy or active as they have been over the last several weeks, and the variety won’t be as great, but watching them raise young is always a highlight of late spring and early summer. Of course, many birds have had their first broods already, but the nesting and rearing will last for the next few months.
Every season has something to offer birdwatchers. There’s always something interesting to observe so be sure to get out there as much as possible.
Birds of New England.com 