After checking in to my hotel, and taking care of some business, I did not get out to Magee Marsh until almost 5PM yesterday. Just time for one loop of the boardwalk. There were still, speaking in comparison to, say, oh any other US birding destination, a lot of birders there, for a Thursday evening. If you are a solitary birder, Magee is not the place for you in May.

As far as birds go, it was slow, again, compared to any other birding destination you might name, We had to be contend, mostly, with single specimens  A Kentucky (3rd image) and a Mourning right at the base of the observation tower kept the crowd above pretty much stationary the whole time I was there. The Blackburnian in the lead image was the only one I saw all evening.

I was, of course, quickly reminded that photographing warblers at Magee is not like an other kind of photography…it is not, in fact, much like any other kind of bird photography. The birds are ridiculously close, but if they are not singing, then they are constantly in motion, flicking in and out of brush and branches and leaves so fast that simply keeping them in the finder is a supreme challenge. Getting focus? Yeah, it can be done as these images attest, but you miss way more than you hit. I brought back a more empty frames and fuzzy birds from an hour a Magee than I accumulated in my whole trip to Arcata Marsh last month. I would have preferred, of course, to have the whole Kentucky in the frame in his image…but this is the best I got.

Again, I only found a single specimen of a Palm Warbler, but it put on show for me, stretching a wing just as I was snapping its picture.

And of course, there were a few singers. You can not keep the Yellow Warblers down, and there were Yellow-rumped Warblers aplenty and a-vocal.

Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. -1/3EV exposure compensation. 1200 and 1800mm equivalent fields of view. Processed for intensity, clarity, and sharpness in Lightroom.