Until I had a conversation with a birder last week, I never realized that Yellow-rumped Warblers (Setophaga coronata) spend their winters in my area. Somehow I thought that they were merely passing through, migrating to some more distant southern location,
This past Friday, I spent quite a bit of time trying to get shots of some Yellow-rumped Warblers. Like the Golden-crowned Kinglet that I featured yesterday, these little birds seemed to spend most of their time hidden from me in the branches, periodically exposing a body part as if to tease me.
Here are a couple of my favorite shots of the day. I never did manage to get very close, but I like the way that the fall foliage helps to establish an environmental backdrop to the images.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
How fortunate to have the yellow-rumped warblers gracing your park in the winter, Mike, and what a gift to learn about their presence in your area. Great photos, not easy, I would imagine. I especially like the second one, the shadow on the tree adds a lot.
These are both beautiful shots and if you’ve ever tried to actually see a warbler, you were quite lucky to catch them still enough to get a clean shot. I love and hate warblers. They are some of the most brightly colored of the birds but they are so quick and hard to see it aggravates me no end. Often you can hear their beautiful voices but finding them is an almost impossible task. I especially like the shot with the mirror shadow on the tree. How fascinating!!!!
Thanks, Sally. This is the first year that I have made a concerted effort to photograph warblers. I missed the migratory ones, but have been able to get a few shots of Palm Warblers and Yello-rumped Warblers. Fortunately I am pretty patient, but results are certainly not guaranteed.
The second shot looks amazingly 3D – I was fascinated by the shadow effect!
Thanks, Liz. I was pretty happy with the way the shadows really enhanced the image and made sure I kept them in the image when I cropped it down a bit.
Nice work!