Home»Birds»Kentucky Warbler

On a Sunday, May 18, 2008 I decided to go on a walk to try to see spring migratory birds on the south shore area of Boston, Massachusetts. It turned out to be a memorable day.
In the world of birders, Wood-Warblers of the family Parulidae, are many times the favorite group to observe, especially in their most colorful spring breeding plumage. There are usually many Warblers to be seen on a spring day at my chosen destination, Wompatuck State Park, Hingham.
Within the many Warblers is a genus named Oporornis, which are prized as a special delight to observe primarily because of their relative rarity and difficulty of observation. I have after many years of birding, now seen all of the genus - Connecticut, Mourning, MacGillivary's and the bird I saw on that day in May, the Kentucky Warbler, Oporornis formosus.
Eddie Giles, currently the President of the Brookline Bird Club had led a walk at Wompatuck the day before and had reported a sighting of the bird along with many others; the Kentucky however, was the prize. Anyway, I decided to head down to see what was there and to keep an eye out for the Kentucky. I ran into some birder friends who had been there earlier and was helped especially by Linda Ferraresso, who told me where their group had seen the bird that morning. I searched the area a couple of times to no avail, but decided to try one more time. While walking down the narrow, buggy treed pathway, I heard a call I didn't recognize to my left. There in the thick undergrowth was a yellowish bird, singing loudly as I tried to focus my camera on the bird, it was a KENTUCKY!
The photographs below are a documentation of that morning.