Rarely do I get this close to warblers. In fact, I had all but given up on ever getting a shot of a northern parula that wasn’t forty feet up in a tree looking straight down at me from behind a leaf or branch. I’ve gotten pretty good at identifying them from just a glimpse of their bellies. But this one - I thought he was going to land on me! He came close enough that I could have reached out and touched him. I actually had to wait for him to finish inspecting me and fly a few feet farther away to get outside the minimum focus distance of my lens. To get any real detail in an image of this bird you have to be close. It’s a tiny little creature - just four inches or so from the tip of his beak to the end of his tail, weighing in at only five to ten grams (one or two U.S. nickels). Now imagine him flying non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico, because that’s exactly what he’ll be doing later this month!
Did you notice his little yellow feet?!