This post is to illustrate the difference between the first fall birds from my previous post. This image is from my April Kentucky trip. This guy is a mature adult male as opposed to a first Spring male probably best told by the lack of any olive in the secondary flight feathers along with solid cerulean blue seen in the primary coverts. See my previous post of a first Spring male from Michigan from this Spring. This mature adult plumage is also supported by a lack of any visible supercillium (white stripe or partial white stripe running above the eye but in some first Spring birds it can be difficult to see a superciillium. Contrary to what some might think is logical the boldness/thickness of the necklace does not correlate well with age at all as some first Spring males have very thick necklaces and some mature adult males have very thin necklaces.

Tags:   Cerulean warbler adult male cerulean warbler cerulean blues Cerulean cerulean warbler in song cerulean warbler plumages male cerulean warbler Kentucky WarblerWhisperer warblerwhisperer.com WarblerWhisperer LLC Spring

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I had a great fall migration for this species. This is a composite of these two rarely photographed plumages. The first fall male is top left and he was one of three of that plumage I had this fall migration. Notice how low contrasty the first fall female is and how much lemon yellow she has below and in her face. She also has an apparent molt limit in the coverts. Fall adult females as a whole lose a lot of their blue tones by the time they are migrating south. I posted a more contrasty fall adult female from this fall migration some weeks ago. Many fall adult females are not so contrasty as her. As a consequence it can often be challenging to age fall females of this species. Notice the lemon yellow in the first fall male but not nearly as much as in this female. The only Cerulean plumage to never have any lemon yellow below is the mature adult male. I had the good fortune this past Spring to photograph with a client a first spring male who still had some lemon yellow below.
The first fall male plumage can have quite a bit of variability depending on how advanced the individual is in the maturation of his physical appearance. The less advanced he is the more he looks like a contrasty fall adult female. I have constructed a couple composites illustrating that variability and how it also compares to the fall adult male. I hope to share that some time in the next year or so in a published format.

Tags:   rarely photographed plumage Cerulean warbler Cerulean Warbler pair composite cerulean warbler plumages cerulean warblers fall cerulean warbler first fall female cerulean warbler first fall male cerulean warbler immature cerulean warbler immature male cerulean warbler july cerulean warbler july migrant cerulean warbler juvenile cerulean warbler juvenile female cerulean warbler migrating cerulean warbler georgia georgia mountains fall migration

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The Halloween Warbler

Tags:   American Redstart halloween Spring georgia wild azalea Flame Azalea WarblerWhisperer warblerwhisperer.com WarblerWhisperer LLC warbler halloween warbler

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Early in May of each year I venture to western North Carolina and each fall I try to go as well. I have so many wonderful memories from there. The devastation there from Helene is beyond description. If you can help consider supporting an organization such as Samaritan's Purse headed by Franklin Graham which is based in North Carolina and has boots on the ground there helping the wonderful folks there.
www.samaritanspurse.org/

Tags:   Western North Carolina spring migration Southern Appalachia appalachia canada warbler Canada warbler in song singing canada warbler Yellow Flowers yellow wild flowers wildflowers Samaritan's Purse Helene

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Fall female Black-and-white Warbler foraging. Anyone know the ID of the bug?

Tags:   black-and-white warbler fall warbler fall female black-and-white warbler georgia mountains warbler foraging warbler with bug

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