While walking the lakes near the summit of Loveland Pass on Sunday I had the great fortune to follow a trail through some willow habitat that was shared by a group of cooperative warblers. The immature female Wilson's Warbler above was just one of the many birds who watched me from the cover of the willows.
The young male displays more of the Wilson's tell-tale dark cap. This one shows the bit of olive around the edges, an indication that lead me to believe this wasn't an adult.
The warblers seemed to feel secure in their concentrated stronghold of branches, and would let me get quite close as I followed the trail along the lake before they moved on to their next perch. Gaps in the branches let us check out one another to our mutual satisfaction.
Wilson's Warblers weren't the only species enjoying the beautiful summer day in the tundra, MacGillivray's Warblers were also moving about in the vegetation.
I noticed that in this case they seemed to prefer perches on top of the willow thicket, making them easier to follow, but a bit more subject to harsh light. Even so, the segmented eye-ring is visible in the shot above.
Just to round out the previous post, here was one of the adult White-crowned Sparrows. As is usual above treeline, these birds were prolific. A great last stop on my trip, but not the last blog entry from that excursion by far. Stay tuned.....
Those little guys are so pretty! Your photos are excellent!
ReplyDelete