Mike Powell

On Thursday I was blessed to photograph a beautiful little Prairie Warbler (Setophaga discolor) as it was singing in a small tree at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. At this time of the year I can often hear the birds, but have trouble spotting them amidst the abundant foliage. Even when I am able to locate a warbler, it is usually perched really high in a tree, out of range of my telephoto lens. In this case, the warbler was almost at eye level when I took these photos.

Despite its name, the Prairie Warbler is not found on a prairie. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, “Finding this bird during the breeding season is often as simple as finding the scrubby second-growth forests, young pine stands, and overgrown pastures that it prefers. In spring, listen for males singing from a mostly exposed perch in one of the tallest trees in its territory, a distinctive sputtering buzz that starts low and climbs high up the scale, beyond human hearing.”

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.