In late September 2010, a small yellow, green, and black bird landed on a fishing boat in Lake Michigan ten miles east of Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Intrigued, one of the fishermen took a few photos of it to identify later.
The bird turned out to be a Townsend’s warbler, a species that breeds in the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest and normally occurs no farther east than West Texas in the U.S.
It seemed miraculous that one had dropped out of the sky onto a boat in a freshwater lake 1,000 miles east of where it was supposed to be. But the incident, though amazing, actually typifies a kind of serendipity that is characteristic of encounters with warblers, even ones that aren’t considered rare.Â
The American wood warblers (Parulidae) are a family of dainty, colorful songbirds that are the jewels of the North American avifauna. About 50 species are found in the U.S., and the vast majority are migratory, spending the winter in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Their bright colors and cheekiness make it a joy to find them, but their ability to migrate long distances—and accept the risks involved with equanimity—gives them the status of tiny heroes. We love them, I think, because they transcend admiration, and warrant something more like reverence.
For most birders in eastern North America, the warblers are the highlight of spring migration, and their return is eagerly awaited every year; including, famously, by Teddy Roosevelt, who once stunned a cabinet meeting by declaring proudly that he had seen a chestnut-sided warbler remarkably early, in February.
I knew I’d be remiss if I didn’t write about warblers at some point in this newsletter, but it seemed reductive to merely talk about how beautiful they are, when they are also among the most efficient athletes on the planet.Â
The Townsend’s warbler in Lake Michigan seems like small potatoes when compared to other members of the same family, dozens of which have visited the U.K., Ireland, France and Portugal; all places separated from the U.S. and Canada by 2,000+ miles of open ocean.Â
Canada warblers and Wilson’s warblers—the two long-distance migrants in the genus Cardellina, which is the namesake of this newsletter—have shown up as far away as the Azores and the Isle of Lewis in Scotland.Â
And earlier this year, a prothonotary warbler appeared on a sailboat in the Southern Ocean, halfway between the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, in waters normally patrolled only by albatrosses and petrels. More than 4,000 miles south of its species’ normal range, the bird might as well have been on the moon.
Most of these spectacular over-water flights by Parulid warbler happen in fall, when birds migrating southeast have the advantage of prevailing westerly winds, but sometimes get caught up in weather patterns that bring them overseas accidentally.
One species, the blackpoll warbler, makes such journeys as part of its routine migratory strategy. Each autumn, the birds nearly double their body weight before launching themselves into the air for a multi-day continuous flight, scudding over the waves from the northeast U.S. to northern South America.
Blackpoll warblers are second only to hummingbirds as the species that flies farthest per gram of body weight; if they were cars, they would get 720,000 miles to the gallon.Â
Though most North American birds migrate, there is something especially impressive about doing so over the ocean as a land bird incapable of resting on water. Such flights remind me of the martlet—a mythical bird which has no feet, and is supposed to fly continuously from the moment of its drop-birth until its death-fall; an allegory for continuous effort.Â
A red martlet is the emblem and logo of McGill University in Montreal; it looks a little like a red warbler (Cardellina rubra). Though that species is nonmigratory, warblers in general seem like better candidates for martlet status than some of the birds which really do spend months to years of their lives continuously on the wing, like common swifts.
By the end of September, the peak of fall warbler migration in the Midwest has passed, and only a few species remain in significant numbers. Most of them have donned duller colors than the vivid hues they wear in spring—soft yellows, browns and muted grays that match the waning autumn landscape.
The most common are yellow-rumped warblers, which can be seen poking along the windowsills of farmhouses, eating dried-up insects caught in old spider webs, or even perched on the guardrails of wastewater treatment facilities, which harbor hatching insects late into the year.
As the leaves curl up, fall down, and turn to mush and the asters nod in the fading light, the yellow-rumps seem to test the air, like aviators licking a finger and holding it up to the quickening wind. I love watching them take off and blow away down the beach, like little puffs of smoke.
Because their journeys are so long and their lives relatively short, I doubt that I have ever seen the same migrating warbler twice. In fact, given that I’m now 27, and that most warblers do not live more than a few years, it is unlikely that any of the millions of wood warblers alive today were alive when I was born. The entire cast has changed, even as I have watched the same spectacular show year after year.
As such, warblers serve as good reminders that our first meetings are also, often, our last ones; and that brief, unexpected encounters sometimes bring the most joy. â—†