Lovely Warblers

We tend to think "yellow" when we think of summer warblers.  Perhaps because there are so many of them.   But two of my favorite warblers are mostly black, blue, and white.  Occasionally sighted in our woods, neither of these birds come to our feeders.  But last week I encountered a warbler right on our deck.  A Black-and-White Warbler.

I especially love the  black and white because its presence here signals that Spring is arriving.  It is one of the earliest migrants to arrive and it spends the summer with us.  We don't see it near the house but in the woods we see it creeping along the branches of trees searching for insects.  They may look like warblers but they act much more like nuthatches or brown creepers.

The black and whites are fierce little birds and are at the ready to attack any other small birds that invade the territory they have decided to defend.  I've never seen one come to our suet feeders, although their feet seem suited to hang onto a suet feeder.  They have an extra long back claw and legs thicker than most warblers.  Most other warblers would not be able to creep along the bark of trees like the black and white.
[NOTE:  You might wish to enlarge the photographs to see the details]

Just one quick shot before he flew

Wonder if he thought the deck wood was hiding bugs?
Yes, the photograph is in color...but it is after all, a black and white bird on a gray deck

A more delicate non-yellow summer warbler we find in our woods is the Black-Throated-Blue Warbler.  Most North Carolina birders see this bird only during migration.  Here in the mountains, we are lucky to have them nest and stay with us all summer.  The black throated blue generally lives deep in the woods and does not come to bird feeders.  They are considered foliage gleaners because they eat the insects on the underside of leaves.

We rarely see these birds near our deck, but one bird decided to try seeds for a change.  I was lucky enough to get a few photographs before he realized he didn't really care for seeds.

Here he sits on the pole holding a feeder

He looks questioningly at the feeder

You can easily see the white "pocket handkerchief" which is an identification hallmark 

As you can see, the black throated blue is much smaller than a goldfinch.

Note his black throat standing out against his blue body and white breast

He quickly decided there was nothing for him so he flew back into the woods.

I did not get a good photograph of the bird's back.  But the black throated blue here in the Appalachian mountains has a black stripe in the middle of his blue back.  Some think this might be a separate and distinct sub-species.  The more common black throated blues of the Northeast and Canada do not have the black stripe.

I have seen many male black throated blues, but I have not once seen a female.  And I've been looking.  The female is quite drab in color and has few markings in common with the males.  She does have a white handkerchief like the male but it is less distinct.  The females are so different they were at first mis-identified as a separate species altogether.  Perhaps it is not surprising that I haven't seen a female.  Interestingly enough, the females nest and forage at much higher altitudes.  After nesting, the males descend to lower elevations while the females remain at the higher elevations.  (Our house is at 3,000 feet which is not a high elevation for the NC mountains.)

Since I've never seen one, much less photographed one, here is a photograph from Wikipedia:

Perhaps one day on a trip to the higher mountains I will glimpse a female Black-Throated-Blue Warbler.  And if I'm lucky I will have the right camera lens with me.

The Autumn migration will begin before long and both these warblers will leave us to winter in Florida or points south.  Even though we don't see them as frequently as we'd like, we are delighted each time we get a glance.