Seasonal Changes

Jeanette checking bird songs

Yesterday was one of those great fall days when you realize the season is changing, the temperature was a bit cooler and the sun a little less harsh. We selected the Rickreall Creek Trail in Dallas for a morning bird walk prior to watching the soccer games of grandsons Luke & Jake.  The trail is a wonderful place to walk and bird that we have been using and recommending for three years now. The city of Dallas continues to expand and improve the trail, a graceful concrete path that follows alongside Rickreall Creek, appropriate for all seasons. Our biggest birding challenge yesterday was identifying two different warblers.  The photo below is a Yellow-rumped Warbler, and the other bird which I did not get a photo of was a Yellow Warbler.  In checking bar charts on eBird for Polk County when I got home it was interesting to find that these last days of September are the cross-over point for these two warblers.  The Yellow Warbler, which has been around since April, is leaving for the winter.  And the Yellow-rumped Warbler that has been absent all of July and August and most of September is reappearing. To observe both of these warblers on a narrow cross-over point in time struck me as pretty amazing. Not only are there seasonal changes in the temperature, but also in the bird population.

Yellow-rumped Warbler