Blue and Gold Migrants

My mantra of late has been "blue and gold" since I have been hoping to get something exotic at the site like a Cerulean Warbler or Golden-winged Warbler. No luck on those. However, we did get those colors today at Wekiva!

Another welcome sight was the first male American Redstart of the Fall season. We have been banding females for a couple of weeks. This male had interesting orange edges to all of its black feathers.



Then came the blue! A Black-throated Blue Warbler, actually.
A lovely male.



Bring on the yellow! My first ever Hooded Warbler was seen at Wekiva last year. We even banded a few females. This year, I was stunned to see this adult male as it we got it out of the bag.



We later caught a younger male Hooded but the colors were nowhere as striking.

The same cannot be said of the Prothonotary Warbler that greeted us late in the morning. To me, it fairly radiated gold as I brought it out of the bag. The first I have ever gotten to hold.



A nice range of color for the day which also brought us the brown of Verrys and the black and white of Chickadees. That should change in the next few weeks as we get the full onslaught of gray. Catbirds are right around the corner!