YRWA

I have looked all year for one. One of the very commonest warbler species... I always get some every single year without fail. This year though I have hunted and hunted to no avail.

All those bird walks.

All the time on the porch with binoculars and camera.

Not a one, no way no how. More exotic warblers have sung and danced and flaunted their feathers at me...Prairie, Black-throated Blue.....plus the other common kinds.

But no YRWA.

Then today, finally alone for a few minutes...and I do mean only a few...hanging laundry in the back yard, using my Blue Tooth to listen to music.

Singing along.

Because....alone you know....I try not to embarrass myself any more than I have to.

I was belting out Acadian Driftwood as loud as I could and no doubt way off key.

The local winter birds are so accustomed to me that, even though the feeder is on the clothesline, and even though it was bouncing up and down as I pinned up towels,

And even though there was all that loud, bad singing and all...they kept right on grabbing sunflower seeds and chortling gleefully that someone was keeping the chipmunks at bay. 

Suddenly, a small brownish bird came in right behind the chickadees and nuthatches. I paused to look at it a little sitting in the bottom branches of the old blue spruce, just because it seemed different.

And there it was, at the most unlikely of times, utterly without effort, no walking, no peering through binoculars and whistling at bushes.....a Yellow-rumped Warbler!

Yay!