Off in the Springbrook Wildlife Preserve I was walking down the boardwalk. I had seen glimpses of a larger brown bird several times and had gone to the area to find him. I heard a lot of birds but didn’t see a single bird.  It is pretty marshy here and a thicket of small trees and bushes. Hard to see anything as small as a bird.

Walking back I saw a bird up in the tree tops. To my delight he was bright yellow. He turned out to be a male Yellow Warbler.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology has great info on this small flashy bird.

North America has more than 50 species of warblers, but few combine brilliant color and easy viewing quite like the Yellow Warbler. In summer, the buttery yellow males sing their sweet whistled song from willows, wet thickets, and roadsides across almost all of North America. The females and immatures aren’t as bright, and lack the male’s rich chestnut streaking, but their overall warm yellow tones, unmarked faces, and prominent black eyes help pick them out.

These bright birds are migratory.  They winter down south and then come north to have babies.  Amazing to think of them flying miles and miles from Seattle to Mexico.  More from Cornell about them:

Long distance migrant. Yellow Warblers breed across central and northern North America and spend winters in Central America and northern South America. They migrate earlier than most other warblers in both spring and fall. Like many other migrating songbirds, Yellow Warblers from eastern North America fly across the Gulf of Mexico in a single nonstop journey; some Yellow Warblers in fall take an overland route around the Gulf.

Wonder what he heard?  Maybe it was me but he is looking a different direction.  Maybe he heard his lover calling back.

Then he went back to singing & I got lucky with a photo of that.

I leave you with him doing a little feather check.  This gives us a great view of his wing structure too.  Hope you enjoyed my latest moment of serendipity out in the wild.