Discovering Warblers

My spark bird was a warbler. I was about eight, and I heard the sound of small wings splashing in a seep in the forest behind my house in Richmond, Virginia. The pool was surrounded by catbrier, and I remember dropping to my stomach to crawl toward the sound. I peeked through the vegetation and saw a blue-winged warbler in the sunlight, bathing madly. It was brilliant yellow, with a tiny black mask through its eyes, and I was very close to it. I remember thinking, "I did not know that such a thing existed. That is the most beautiful bird I have ever seen."

Soon after that, my parents ordered National Geographic's Song and Garden Birds of North America through the mail. I memorized the wood warblers and read the species accounts over and over. That same winter, a small flock of yellow-rumped (myrtle) warblers came down to forage on the bare, turned earth of our vegetable garden. Once again, I was enchanted by them – their small size and brilliant colors. So from the very start, warblers were what rang my bell, and (I'm not going to say how many years later), they still are.