Cha Cha Slide…by Brad Marks

Welcome to September everyone! By now everyone knows what I am up to all day and all night so no need to belabor that point beyond apologizing more for being out of pocket for a good portion of this month. The good news is Brad and Jan have made it back safely from their latest excursion with SD cards full of future Intrigued fodder. I suspect it will take them some time to parse and process all the finds from that recent adventure (they have a ways to go before closing in on my 3 year backlog level…ha), but he has several accounts from outings earlier in the year that we will be featuring this month. To start things off, let’s go with some field work we did together.

Take it away Brad…

It was time for the 2nd Annual Intrigued Corporate Warbler Watch and Walk in the Woods.  Actually, that sounds like a good thing to start officially, with a bit of rebranding:  Intrigued (or International) Warbler Watch & Walk in the Woods, or the IW4.  Intrigued HQ started it here first, go spread the word!  I think that might be a great T-shirt idea paired with our corporate logo.  We must get the Intrigued marketing department to work on that right away.  (XXL Tall in Tec for me please.) 

I met Brian at Intrigued HQ to start our day.  When I arrived at HQ, Brian had already been chasing a Tennessee Warbler around the estate.  Being new to this bird, I asked what color it was (guessing a shade of yellow) so I could look for motion.  Brian replied, “It’s olive-colored with some yellow on it.”  Great!  Just like every single leaf in the woods at that point.  We could certainly hear two of them communicating.  I think one was saying, “Watch this, I can get those guys to look over here.”  And the other would reply, “Good one, now it’s my turn.  Watch their heads snap around the other direction.”  After spending time being laughed at by the Tennessee Warbler (they can trash talk, must have learned it from Raven and Ruger), we decided to expand our warbler search to nearby Jubilee State Park grounds.  Luckily, the park is only a few minutes from HQ and makes for great “Work from Woods” days.

Brian led us down a new trail, well, new to Intrigued outings at least.  However, a new trail always has the risk of an unseen root reaching up to grab you.  A couple of hundred feet into the trail, even I could make out warbler calls throughout the woods without using Merlin, though it is good for a memory aid to have bird songs and calls recorded with the timestamp to help sort photos later.

After a brief hike and photographing warblers for about 90 minutes (do you know how spastic they can be?), we decided to head to a new spot to see what we could see.  Cresting a small hill, Brian noticed the trail back to the parking lot was mostly mud near the creek.  The whole area had just had inches of rain a few days prior.  What good are hiking boots if they aren’t muddy?  We continued. 

In the middle of the squishiest part of the trail, Brian said to stop and pointed to a small tree.  I followed his outstretched arm to find a small yellow dot flitting about the twigs in a tree. 

Prothonotary Warbler by Brad Marks

Hit the jump to find out what caught our attention!

It’s a Prothonotary Warbler (Protonotaria citrea), and +1 for me.  Not to worry, the photos do improve as the story wanders along.

Their preferred habitat is wooded bottomlands near a stream or a swamp in the Southeast.   Were the bird habitat definition people looking over our shoulders?  That’s precisely where we found this one, except for the Southeast part.  It was perched on a twig in a very small tree hanging over a creek.  Brian and I were standing on muddy ground from recent rains, watching this little yellow bird hop all over the thin twigs

Prothonotary Warbler by Brad Marks

This P-warbler (and maybe all of them do) have a superpower.  They can “scootch” along twigs without seeming to move their tiny legs.  I saw this one scootching up and down twigs without moving several times during our visit.  Nearly instantly, I had this chorus running through my head, modified for birding of course:

Slide to the left.

Prothonotary Warbler by Brad Marks

Slide to the right.

Prothonotary Warbler by Brad Marks

Criss cross

Criss cross

Something subtle was going on.  Usually, I can see the birds hopping along a twig.  There was deep afternoon forest dappled lighting, high ISO setting, and as wide an aperture as my lens allowed.  While the camera could capture images, my eyes couldn’t quite pick up the fancy footwork.  The P-warbler was “scootching” along the twig, sort of in a Michael Jackson “moonwalk” fashion.  Brian and I saw it move down, or up twigs with the same fluidity. 

Up twig this time

Down twig this time

If you look closely in the middle photo above, you can see some of the fancy footwork captured by the camera.  The P-warbler has a foot lifted as it “scootches” up the twig.

Not only did we see fancy footwork, we saw feeding behavior.  Well, the camera saw it.  I didn’t see it until I was in the digital darkroom later that day, or maybe even the next day.

 One bug this time

Prothonotary Warbler by Brad Marks

One bug this time

Prothonotary Warbler by Brad Marks

Every birdy flap your wings

Flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap

I’m not sure if Brian was singing the same song in his head at the time.  And I was really hoping I wasn’t singing out loud; it’s usually not pretty.

We were smack dab near the middle of its breeding range.  This one was probably looking for a mate. During breeding season, P-warblers like to eat spiders, butterflies, flies, essentially any insect that crawls or flies that they can easily catch as witnessed in the photos above.  The male selects several former woodpecker or chickadee nesting sites and presents them to a prospective mate.  The female has selection rights for nesting.  The male installs the carpet, but the female builds the rest of the nest over the next 3-8 days.  The seasonally monogamous pair will raise 3-7 eggs total across 1-3 broods in a single breeding season.  Incubation is 12-14 days, with nesting another 9-10 days.  Pairs will often return to the same nesting site the following season.  Brown-headed Cowbirds (eg. asshats) lay their eggs in Prothonotary Warbler nests, forcing foster parents to raise cowbird eggs often at the expense of their own.

Prothonotary Warbler by Brad Marks

I could imagine it asking, “Did you capture my good side?  Hurry, the light is fading.”

Cha Cha real slow now y’all  (apologies to DJ Casper)

Thank you for reading.  If you want to see more Prothonotary Warbler photos, please visit here.

Credits:

Thanks again to Jan and Allyson for proofreading and editing.

44 thoughts on “Cha Cha Slide…by Brad Marks”

  1. Well Brad at least your warblers are lovely bright colours. Over here they come in various shades of brown as you will find out if any have stuck around and not legged it back to Africa on hearing of your imminent arrival. But at least they act the same.

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    1. Thanks B! Yes, some of them certainly do have brilliant colors, if I’m able to isolate them from the bright yellow leaves surrounding them sometimes. I fear we will miss the colorful birds of October, but maybe some of the hearty locals will stand still for a photo or three. Watch for Jan and I with our large glass wandering the heath. If you spot us there, I’ll buy you a pint. (limited time offer, void where prohibited, not valid in all shires).

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    1. Thank you. Thankfully the camera captured nearly precisely what I was seeing. But without Brian pointing it out, I was more focused (no pun intended) on the mud and slippery trail.

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    1. Ha, maybe. I like shoulder room when I lift my camera for a photo, and not having to worry about my shirt spontaneously untucking itself. Yes it is a cute and bright little bird. I was lucky to catch it. Thanks for stopping by.

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      1. Just teasing. I come from a tall family on my maternal side. I am #4 of 10 grandkids and I have a male cousin that is 6′ 8″. The oldest cousin, she is 6′ 2″. My mom is the only girl & her four brothers are like stair-steps…6′ 3″, 6′ 4″, 6′ 5″ & 6′ 6″, getting taller as each one appeared. LOL! I wound up being the 2nd shortest of the grandkids at 5′ 9″ due to the paternal side. Tall is good but, hard on the knees (only the women, tho…). 😬

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        2. I remember the first time I went to meet Linda’s family – she is 5’10″+ and her brothers and father were well beyond that – like the land of the giants. Not sure what they are putting in the corn in Iowa, but that was one intimidating meet.

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          1. I’m sure. My cousin David, at 6′ 8″ is an anomaly. I asked him why he didn’t play basketball in college. He said “white man disease.” LOL! He wound up a musician, gave guitar lessons & moved into computer programming.

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            1. Can completely understand. I was on the reverse side of that .. all the energy available, all the desire, all the savvy and loved all the practices, but my 5’5″ frame at the time couldn’t overcome the size of the other players … so I took up martial arts where it was okay to kick them down to size ha.

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            3. Multiple degrees of Black Belts in Tae-Kwon Do and Hapkido, multiple colored belts in Jujitsu, Akido and countless weapon proficiencies (knife, bo, escrimas etc. – all things things I could reach for in a bar ha). My body got tenderized for years.

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            4. I struggled with my bad knees. Yoga was better for me, tho some stances brought the karate in me, back out. One of my teachers remarked that my movements were less “yogic” and more aggressive. I had to explain where it came from.

              I did some work with the bo & tonfa. Nunchakus, I was not good with.

              I also had some training in Wing Chun & Neko-ru Goshin Jitsu. Dabbled in Tai Chi & tried Aikido but, the teacher was not very good. I have a cousin that loved Judo.

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            5. Fun stuff! My hardcore styles were Tae Kwon Do when on the feet and the Hapkido when we went to the ground…against the ground fighters (Jujitsu etc). we stayed on the feet and then we threw all the other disciplines we threw on the ground immediately. Similarly, my Aikido instructor was rather poor and we really didn’t get along that well as I kept asking questions because some of the things he was teaching would only work if the victim was clueless..also didn’t like me lowering my center of gravity every time he went to throw me. I got what I needed out of it and then bailed for better dojos. I never had any training in Tai Chi so that one would be new to me. These days I rely on other skills that don’t require me to be that close.

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            6. I wish I’d had the opportunity to try many different styles but, I was limited by my small town. It was a rare thing for Isshin-Ryu to have even showed up in my hometown. All the masters were former Marines, stationed in Okinawa. The creator of that style was a Tatsuo Shimabuku.

              I butted heads with my Sensei, too, on certain things.

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            7. Admittedly, not that familiar with Isshin-Ryu, sound intriguing. I was extremely particular about my senseis – I didn’t want any belt pushers (pure profit dojos), wanted to be based deep in the philosophy, highly disciplined, effectiveness over ring points, no body areas off limits and pads only when going full force which was the preferred method. Took me awhile to find that individual after leaving college but lucked out in a small town about 45 minutes away. Got the crap beat of me, learned an incredible amount and would want anyone in that dojo by my side if things turned bad. Sensei did break two of my ribs which I could have done without now in my later years as they fused back together and now press into my kidney – didn’t know they were broken at the time as I felt the same as I always did after a hard class.

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        1. I hope you are both past it or at least on the downside of recovery. Been really tied up with all the things happening in the Intrigued sphere (read chaos) and haven’t had a chance to get caught up on the blog reading.

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            1. Good to hear! Trust me, you are no worse off than I am on the catching up front. I’ll be pretty much consumed until after the Halloween event…maybe a little longer as the week after the party I have a 50 mile race…and then fingers crossed all slows down!

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    1. Thanks Sam. No smoothing via Photoshop either. I was amazed looking at the photos later to see how smooth it was. Plus Brian and I had a fun time on the IW4 that afternoon.

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  5. Wonderful shots Brad, such a pretty bird. Blue jays have finally come back to my area along with a coopers hawk. Those blue jays don’t put up with him. They try to chase him off. I got some great shots though. 🙂

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  6. Oh boy did I ever enjoy all these photos, Brad, of the prothonotary warbler. We don’t get this beauty on the west coast so this was a real treat. Even that tree with the ridged leaves is something I am unfamiliar with. Great photos, love the blue sky. Also enjoyed the square-dancing fun and discussion of the scootching…news to me.

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    1. Glad you liked it Jet. Always fun sharing these gems. Brian was a great guide that day and was the only reason I even saw this one. I will have a few posts from our Alaska trip soon, those will be more familiar. Thanks for coming by, always appreciated.

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    1. Thanks very much. We thought it was scootching when we watched in person, but really weren’t sure. Also didn’t see the bug snacks until later. An exciting find to be sure.

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  8. This is a beautiful bright addition to your life list, Brad. Thank you for sharing your photos and observations about his fancy moves. I have only seen one representative of his kind and don’t think he was in the mood to dance when we met.

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