Warbler Workshop
Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary and
Blue Ridge, Asheville, NC
Wednesday, May 24, 2006

A beautiful spring day in the Southern Appalachians - actually is was probably a little too good to keep the warbler activity up and running. We had a cool start at Beaver Lake, but were immediately rewarded with outstanding views of both Northern Waterthrush and Yellow Warbler. A female American Redstart on her nest was a wonderful sight and perfectly demonstrated how camouflaged her nest was. Unfortunately the Cape May Warblers at the house had left, so we missed this northern-nesting transient species. After an excellent lunch catered by The Stick House Grill here in Asheville, we headed up onto the Parkway. The sunny conditions did somewhat deter a great deal of singing, but by the end of the afternoon we had seen Cerulean, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Chestnut-sided and Worm-eating Warblers, plus outstanding views of Canada Warblers that could barely be improved upon. I should think that many males had just arrived back on their breeding grounds and were actively singing and looking for territories.

We finished the day with 16 species of warblers - most locally breeding species, aside from the Waterthrush that was heading up to some boggy habitat in the northwoods. Even better than numbers was that most species were seen well, not just glimpsed as they flew by!