Hooded Warbler in Grand Teton National Park

Hooded Warbler Perched on Branch

Birding always seemed like it was a hobby for other types of people. I certainly would never become a birder. Despite this, I still loved the movie, The Big Year. As an avid wildlife enthusiast and photographer, I could still appreciate the humor and scenarios of the plot.

One early spring day in May, I was guiding a photography workshop for a pair of friends, and it came to my attention that they hadn’t yet seen this movie, despite their professed love of birds. In raving about how much they’d love it, it dawned on me that it had been more than a year since I last watched it, which is a long time for me. That night, unwinding from the day, I put the movie on once again.

The next morning, I woke up…different. The birds chirping outside my window weren’t just birds chirping. I wanted to know what they were. I had to see them. Fortunately, I already had a Sibley’s bird guide for the more unusual sightings I came across in my guiding expeditions and travels. I quickly looked them up. A house wren? I’ve never heard of that! That’s a northern flicker?! I was thrust into a world that was sitting under my nose the whole time that I never knew existed. There was a new discovery around every turn. All my old wildlife hotspots now looked completely different, filled with wildlife I had never even accounted for.

The spring migration was still going strong, being relatively early in the season. I went out for a few days to walk the Moose-Wilson Road before cars clogged it up for the day. Every moment there was a new “lifer” for me to discover, ie, a new bird I’ve never seen before. It was all so new, I had no way of knowing which ones would stick around, and which ones were incredibly rare for the area.

Such was the case with this hooded warbler. Looking at this map, you can see their summer range is primarily in the southern United States, stretching into southern New England. If I had known that when I took this shot, I would not have let this bird out of my sight. Somehow, this little hooded warbler had strayed ridiculously far from its standard migration, and was right in front of me, someone who didn’t know any different. Hindsight is 20/20, and so now, bear season has taken on a whole new life for me.

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