The Howland
Picture Pages: Hooded Warbler The Howland
Picture Pages: Hooded WarblerPage by Royce
Last update: $Date: 2004/12/22 02:31:06 $ (UTC)
The Hooded Warbler (Wilsonia citrina) is a distinctive Wood-Warbler. Bright yellow in the face and under feathers, and olive green on the back, males stand out even further thanks to a bold, black hood that is impossible to mistake. The hood looks like a balaclava, which wouldn't be out of place winter wear for a Canadian bird. However, it is in fact an eastern U.S. species, with no normal range in Canada outside of southern Ontario.
The bird is found in habitat such as swamps, moist woodlands and ravines near water. It has a "chip" call like many warblers, but it is one of the loudest and most penetrating of the different warblers we have encountered so far. It seems to call almost constantly while gleaning and flycatching the insects it eats, usually among the underbrush or low branches of trees at a height of no more than 3 - 4 meters.
Since we haven't yet done much birding on the eastern half of the continent, our experience with the Hooded Warbler is very limited. Ironically it is all within Alberta, with a single individual. As far as I know as I write this there are only five confirmed occurrences of the species within Alberta. This includes the first one in Calgary, an individual featured on this page in three installments (chapter 1, chapter 2 and chapter 3). This was a very exotic and exciting bird by Calgary standards!
Resources where you can find out more:
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Chapter 3. This shot, taken on December 7, 2004 begins the third and final chapter in the saga of Calgary's first recorded Hooded Warbler. Pat Bumstead and I (as well as a few others) had continued to track the warbler in the weeks following the photos from mid-October (see below), seeing the bird on many occasions due to his bright coloration (especially for a wintering song bird in Calgary), strongly territorial behavior and piercing "chip" call. He was so challenging to photograph, however, that I had to keep trying to get that "definitive" shot. Pat, Brian Ritchie, Richard Klauke, Fred Whiley and myself all saw the warbler extensively during a cold day on December 7. The bird was still quite active in Pat's back yard, and a few days earlier had learned to come to a tray feeder. On this day he was eating meal worms in substantial numbers. The warbler didn't fly any great distance that we could see, instead popping down into the base of a nearby former greenhouse box when not eating at the feeder. Pat had set up a heat lamp near the feeding tray, but the warbler seemed to ignore it for the most part. While favoring his left leg quite a bit, indicating possible freezing damage (we had had 3 - 4 nights of -15 C or less at that point), we all felt the bird was still evidently in good enough health to last through one more day of cold snap and make it to the warmer weather that was supposed to come. Unfortunately, the night of December 7 was the coldest yet of the winter for us (probably -24 C or a bit lower), and on December 8 it didn't warm up much as originally forecast. The warbler was not seen at the feeder for two full days of hard looking (December 8 - 9) despite Pat putting out fresh meal worms several times a day, and leaving the heat lamp on. Nor was he seen or heard since. So our opinion is the warbler most likely did not make it through the night of December 7. A search was made for it but no body, feathers, etc. were found anywhere the bird was known to have spent time in its last few days. In this picture, the Hooded Warbler is perched on the edge of the feeding tray, no doubt regarding the meal worms there. He is fluffed up against the cold, and his left leg is tucked up which we saw several times during the day. This shot was taken hand-held with a Canon EOS 10D + EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens. The exposure has been brightened up a little since the day was overcast. The reddish tone in the image is from the glow of the nearby heat lamp, while the slightly grainy appearance results from shooting at ISO 800 -- no noise reduction was employed on this image.
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Here the Hooded Warbler takes a look at the meal worms from a different perspective. Perhaps they look more appetizing from the right eye instead of the left? This shot was taken hand-held with a Canon EOS 10D + EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens, adjusted as with the previous shot.
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On the visit to the feeder, the Hooded Warbler approached from the left side where the light was a little better and not so red-cast from the heat lamp. This shot was taken hand-held with a Canon EOS 10D + EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens, adjusted as with the previous shot.
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Here, the Hooded Warbler is enjoying a tasty meal worm, one of many he consumed while we watched on this day. Actually, given the temperature, it was more likely a meal worm-cicle, but the warbler didn't seem to mind. This shot was taken hand-held with a Canon EOS 10D + EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens, adjusted as with the previous shots. This shot also was run through Noiseware Community Edition. Links to the left show a larger version of the image both with and without noise reduction.
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This is one of the final shots I got of the warbler on December 7, and (most likely) prior to its death of cold that night. We were near the end of what passed for daylight, and so the red glow from the heat lamp is particularly noticeable. This shot was taken hand-held with a Canon EOS 10D + EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens, adjusted as with the previous shots. This shot also was run through Noiseware Community Edition. For the last few shots, I had bumped up to ISO 1600 to get a reasonable shutter speed, and image noise was significant. Links to the left show a larger version of the image both with and without noise reduction.
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Here is the spot where the Hooded Warbler spent much of its last few days. The tray feeder containing meal worms is in the center, sitting on a step ladder. The red glow of the heat lamp can be seen to the right. This shot was taken with a Canon EOS 10D + EF 17-40mm f/4L USM lens.
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Chapter 2. This shot of Calgary's first Hooded Warbler was taken on October 21, 2004. Following my initial photos, I had continued visiting the back yard location in which the bird had taken up residence. I was hoping for a better photo opportunity, but I knew the freezing temperatures, overcast and snow from the onset of winter were going to make it questionable whether the bird could survive, let alone whether I would get a better shot. But the little bird proved to have a lot of moxie, and hung in there through the weather. He stuck pretty much to his predictable area and pattern, although his timing and behavior started to change a bit in response to shorter day-light hours and altered food availability. Over the preceding few days, the warbler had been showing up in its back yard zone earlier than normal, around 5:20 PM or so, and spending time gleaning on tree branches at a little more sedate pace than it had previously employed. (Previously the bird was showing up around 6:30 - 7:10, by which time it was too dark for any photography.) Since the earlier arrival back in its home yard meant in theory that the light would be better, today I dropped by the location around 5:15. Sure enough, my wife Deb (just back from a long business trip; she hadn't yet seen the bird) and I spotted the warbler almost immediately upon getting out of the car. It was working both sides of road in front rather than its usual back yard haunts -- stopping on mail boxes, yard lights, hedges, tree limbs, bare ground beneath windows, and so on. Fortunately some other birders waiting patiently in the back yard were alerted about the shift in locale, and quickly came around front. We all got excellent views of the warbler for a few minutes. Although the sky was still fully overcast, the light was tolerable and I managed to get a couple of clear shots. Side note: This shot subsequently made it into the Calgary Herald newspaper on November 18, 2004, Neighbors section page N3. (The Neighbors section was included only in the subscription edition of the paper.) Grady Semmens, a Herald staff reporter, wrote a short article on the warbler with input from local naturalist Gus Yaki. My photo (in black & white) headed the article. This photo was taken hand-held with a Canon EOS 10D + EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens. Some retouching was done by bumping up contrast and saturation, and applying unsharp mask gaussian. I did not make any adjustments for noise, which is not bad for ISO 800.
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Here, the bird is searching for insects through fallen leaves right along side a house. It is in a narrow margin that isn't covered in snow. How many times would a person see a Hooded Warbler walking through a snow bank, uphill both ways? This shot was taken hand-held with a Canon EOS 10D + EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens. Some retouching was done by bumping up contrast and saturation, and applying unsharp mask gaussian. The original in this case, also taken at ISO 800, was very noisy. I used Noiseware Community Edition to smooth it out.
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Chapter 1. Here are a few of the best of the first sequence of photos I was able to get of the first Calgary Hooded Warbler, a male. These shots were taken on the morning of October 13, 2004. Many thanks to Pat Bumstead, in whose back yard this Hooded Warbler took up residence. When she identified the new visitor around October 3, she put the word out in the Calgary birding community -- and then graciously tolerated an invasion of birders on her back deck, all looking for (and most seeing) this active bird far off its normal flight path back east. (Side note: Quite a few interesting birds were seen by many of us while hanging out in Pat's yard waiting for the Hooded Warbler. I didn't get a lot of photographs of these other species, but some I did get include Cape May Warbler, Rusty Blackbird and even a Boreal Owl!) I got into the game a bit late in the bird's stay, but once I started dropping by Pat's deck I had great luck seeing the warbler, along with numerous other local birders. :~) Photographing the warbler was another story. Getting good photos of such birds can be tough at the best of times, and this one had developed its most consistent pattern of showing up to roost in Pat's back yard just around dusk. The yard is east facing, which meant the fall light was getting dim as the bird arrived. And of course it would flit constantly from one spot to another, often within the foliage rather than right out in the open. A tough act to capture. Fortunately, on this morning sighting with better light, Terry Korolyk and I were able to follow the Hooded Warbler for a few minutes as it moved around the yard in presumably its first warm-up activity of the morning -- chilly at about +5 C. We both had our cameras out, hoping for a break. I was fortunate to snap off a few frames through the visual clutter as the warbler gleaned along a branch at a distance of about 5 meters. It then moved off out of the yard and we didn't see it again, although we continued to hear it in a neighboring yard for a few more minutes. This photo, and the others below, were all taken hand-held with a Canon EOS 10D + EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens. Because the original quality was not that great, all of the photos have been retouched with increased contrast and saturation, plus some unsharp mask.
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Here is another angle on the Hooded Warbler. The CLO profile for the Hooded Warbler states that the species is very territorial in its wintering grounds, and this seems to be borne out by observation of the Calgary male bird. Over several days, Pat got to know it reasonably well in terms of time and place in her yard and the immediate vicinity. This helped a number of us sight the warbler without spending many fruitless hours of waiting.
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Here is a final view of the Calgary Hooded Warbler. Pity about those twigs in front, but that's the way it goes sometimes.
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Unless stated otherwise, all photos and other content on these pages is copyright © 2002 - 2004 by Royce Howland.
Please don't steal anything for your own purposes, in particular if you have a plan for making fabulous stacks of cash in so doing. If you would like to use a photo or other content you find here, or just want to contact us about something, please send email to royce@3ge.com.
