Return of Yellow-rumped warblers

[Shortsighted]

My visit to a Scarborough park yesterday did reveal quite a few kinglets of both species so I figured that a much closer Pickering park would provide the same this morning. Unfortunately there were fewer kinglets here in Pickering. The wooded area, which is small, had mostly Golden-crowned kinglets that were located way up in the canopy. I saw maybe a couple of Ruby-crowned while in the woods, also out of reach and hampered by poor light. There were no wrens and no thrushes to be seen, although a modest group of White-throated sparrows. I also saw one Dark-eyed junco. Spotted both a Downy and a Hairy but no sapsucker. There were fewer interruptions here in Pickering than I endured in Scarborough but dog walkers and mobile phone conversations are definitely spilling onto the side trails more now than during previous weeks. I expect this trend will only increase in frequency as the autumn unfolds.


In the open fields there were mostly Song sparrows and Goldfinches, but also quite a few juvenile Yellow-rumped warblers, a species I have not seen much since August. The weedy fields were both sun bathed and in shade from trees standing near the bluffs. The foreground weeds made it very difficult, indeed near impossible to focus on a bird deeper in the field because the AF was always getting hung-up on nearer stalks. I was able to capture some of the YRW in the shaded part of a field because they were closer to the path. I think that I captured one juvenile Palm warbler from a distance (yellow undertail and bold superciliary arch). So far, no sign of Field sparrows or Orange-crowned warblers.


Possible Palm warbler (broad eye brow and yellow undertail coverts)



Yellow-rumped juvenile warbler