An Everyday Birder's confession

 yellow-breasted chat, Boy Scout Woods, High Island, Texas

It's October now! Temps are dropping down into the 60s at night. Days are clear and breezy and lovely. My favorite time of the year is here. It's also a great time for migrating warblers passing through and fellow birders and ebirders seem to be reporting all sorts of warblers regularly. It's the perfect time to go out and look for warblers.

EXCEPT I HATE LOOKING FOR WARBLERS! Well, that's a bit strong of course. Maybe I should say I seriously dislike looking for warblers. It's just not fun for me. Warblers are small and flit up in the treetops or in the brush. They are hard to see, and often when you see one you see a bit of olive drab and a bit of yellow - markings that could one of a whole bunch of warblers. And their songs? I play my CDs over and over again, but so many of the warbler songs still sound alike to me!  

Palm Warbler, Fleming Island mall, Fleming Island, Florida

 So warbler season actually tends to depress me. Lots of interesting little birds passing through my area, and I can almost never see them. And when I do see them nine times out of ten I can't figure out what they are.

Do I ever see warblers? Sure, I see them sometimes. I've seen a few interesting birds. But rarely. When I do it's usually because I'm with someone else who spotted them first and then pointed them out to me. And since I tend to be all alone when I go birding about 95% of the time that means the occasions when I have someone to point out warblers to me is rare.

Yellow warbler, Sackville Waterfowl Park, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada

So here it is warbler season, and I feel I *ought* to be looking for warblers. But I don't really want to look. I want to go to the saltmarshes, not the woodlands. I want to see DUCKS! Ducks are my special passion. But it's not quite duck season yet. And when it is duck season there are few good areas I've found to see ducks that are not too far from where I live.