I’ve been birding since January, and just when I feel like I am getting the hang of identifying birds in the wild, one will throw me a curveball. Meet the latest to do that.
I was at the Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive a week ago when I noticed this bright yellow little bird in some bushes behind me. The sun was still coming up, and the lighting was bad, but I was able to get a few pictures of it. Then about 10 minutes later, in a different location, I saw another bird with the same bright yellow coloring and took more pictures (not great ones, though). But I still didn’t know what it was.
Cornell’s wonderful Merlin birding app, my go-to source for birding IDs, couldn’t give me a positive identification from my less-than-ideal photos. It said it was either a Yellow Warbler, a Nashville Warbler or a Chestnut-sided Warbler. With a little more research, I was able to quickly eliminate the Chestnut. And this really didn’t look like a Nashville Warbler either. But a Yellow Warbler seemed to be a pretty rare bird around here.
Yesterday, I visited Lake Apopka again to try to get some better pictures of the mystery yellow birds. They weren’t there, but a couple of birders who also saw the birds last week were. They said the birds were Yellow Warblers.
So, we’re going to call these Yellow Warblers – at least for now. There’s still a good chance they might be something else – Prothonotary Warbler, perhaps? – but I guess we will never know for sure.
