For the past few years, yellow warblers have made a home in a group of trees about 100 yards up from the Cold Soil Road parking lot at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm. From their arrival during Spring migration until their departure in Fall, I can count on hearing one of them in this same spot virtually every morning I visit the park.
Most often, though, they’re obscured by the leaves of the trees. If I’m lucky, sometimes they pop into view. I got lucky Friday.
A yellow warbler was singing repeatedly as I turned onto the path through the alley of trees. The bird was so close that I thought it was worth waiting a few minutes in the hope of spotting it.
Soon, under a heavy overcast gray sky, the bird emerged, clinging to a vertical branch sticking up from the top of one of the trees. The bird was backlit and appeared nearly black through my viewfinder. I took several shots, figuring that my Adobe Lightroom software would be able to bring up the yellow.
Indeed, Lightroom came through, as you can see from the photo topping this post. As I’ve noted here before, my photographic approach is journalistic, hoping to replicate through my photos what I saw in real life. That’s appropriate for car wrecks and other spot photos for a news organization, but over time I’ve come to rely more on editing software to bring out the highlights of birds and other critters that I encounter, especially when lighting conditions are unforgiving in the field.
Amidst a period of dreary weather, I consider that yellow warbler’s appearance a gift, one I’m happy to share with my readers.
As a side note, I’ve discovered that the people who follow my Bluesky social media account respond very well to my bird photos. It’s not a surprise that the prettier the bird, the greater the reaction. 🦅
The Jersey Birder 