Warbler Migration In Full Swing

I spent last weekend working on some pier repairs before the season gets into full swing, and while at the lake, we noticed that there were a ton of little bugs. I'm not an entomologist, and they reminded me of gnats, so I'll call them gnats. There weren't too many bird around yet though to eat them.

This weekend all that changed. I took a half-day on Friday to spend more time patching up the pier. And what I found was the largest group of Yellow Rumped Warblers I have ever encountered. The Yellow Rumps were in the trees, on the deck, on the ground, on the pier, in the bushes, and in some row boats that we are trying to sell. Along with the Yellow Rumps, a number of Palm Warblers were out and about too.

It was a good reminder of a few things:

1. Many birds will never visit a bird feeder becasue they eat bugs.

2. Migratory birds try to time their arrival with food availability. If the gnats emerged earlier or later, the birds could go hungry.

3. Everything in nature has its place. Are bugs annoying? Sure. But they also just fed hundreds if not thousands of warblers on the lake.

Take a look at the pictures below, and maybe next year you'll decided to visit Puckaway around the first of May to see warbler migration in full swing.

Yellow Rump on a boat


Yellow Rump on a tree


Palm Warbler on the pier