Mike in the Wild

All it took was a glance from the deck into my Prescott yard to beckon me back to the warbler trail.  Looking up from my lunch toward a scraggly alligator juniper that's more of a bush than a tree, I spotted a peripatetic bird with a bright yellow head.  If I were in Phoenix, I'd have supposed it was a verdin, but among the pines at over a mile high I surmised it was a male hermit warbler.  And just like that, I was back to chasing warblers, reaching a new count of eleven individual species for the year.   The next day at close to the same time I witnessed another warbler, darting from branch to branch in the oak trees of my front yard.  I saw distinct black stripes which made me think it was a black and white warbler, an uncommon migratory bird to the area.  Circling my yard, I only captured a picture of a Bewick's wren high in a ponderosa pine tree.  I simply couldn't be as sure with this second warbler.  A couple of days later, I hit the f...