I realize that I wrote a column on the yellow-rumped warbler just last week, but I had an encounter with this species that was as wonderful as it was unexpected. I very rarely feature a particular species in consecutive columns, but this was an exceptional exception and I decided to go for it.

For several years now I have been writing about my Thinking Chair; an Adirondack-style chair that I have positioned at the edge of the wet meadow behind my house. It is a place that I return to again and again to commune with Nature and to take photos of birds, rabbits, shrews, mink and whatever else might show up. It has also occurred to me that I am an extremely fortunate person who has managed to secure temporary ownership of a property with such an amazing setting.

Again and again I write about my observational adventures down in the meadow and I sometimes wonder if this doesn’t discourage my readers from trying to get out and see things. Well, this story is about an outstanding encounter with an entire flock of yellow-rumped warblers that didn’t take place on a crisp autumn morning at the edge of a meadow. This time it was in the evening while I was sitting on my deck.

Instead of the hour after sunrise, this time I was enjoying a pleasant evening on the deck during the hour before sunset. All of the regular dinner diners were in attendance, but I started to hear some familiar chip notes from the branches of the cottonwood tree directly above me, and when I looked up I was amazed to see that the tree was crawling with warblers. They were very active; exploring every nook and cranny of the bark for anything that might be edible. This made photography a challenge, but the number of birds and their determination to linger in the lower branches of the tree gave me almost unlimited opportunity to take pictures. At one point, the birds were so close that I actually had to zoom out a little.

It was an astoundingly fun 30 minutes of watching these birds foraging and squabbling among themselves and I thought that this is something that might happen to anyone with a backyard deck. All you need to do is get outside and be in the moment. In the digital age this can be a challenge, but time spent being quietly and pleasantly “bored” can often lead to interesting thoughts and surprising discoveries.

The yellow-rumped warbler is the warbler species that we will see first in the spring and last in the fall. The period of their peak abundance is from mid September to mid November, which means now is the exact time to go out and look for one. There is actually the potential to see this species throughout the year, but experience suggests wintertime observations would require a trip to the coast of the Bay State. A nice off-season trip to the Cape might be in order, people!

Officially classified and named in 1766 by the great taxonomist Carl Linnaeus, the yellow-rumped warbler’s scientific name, ”Setophagacoronata,” is an interesting one. The genus name is a compound word formed by combining the Greek ”setos,” which means, “a moth,” and the Greek word ”phago,” which means, “to eat.” The species name is the Latin name for “crowned.” Thus, Setophagacoronata is literally the “crowned moth-eater.” The thing to understand is that breeding males in their full springtime regalia have a patch of bright yellow feathers right on top of their heads.

The breeding range of the yellow-rumped warbler extends from all of New York and New England north to the Arctic Circle and westward throughout most of Canada to the majority of the interior of Alaska. The preferred habitat during the breeding season is coniferous forests, but the birds will also take advantage of areas where there is a conifer-rich mix with deciduous species like aspens and willows. The female will build a cup-shaped nest on a horizontal branch of a spruce, cedar or hemlock tree and the materials selected for the nest will include small twigs and bark strips with a lining of hair, fine grasses and lots of feathers.

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Once the nest is complete, the female will lay a clutch of four-to-five white eggs that are decorated with a ring of dark brown spots around the “fat end” of the egg. The female is solely responsible for the 12-day incubation of the eggs and the 12-day brooding of the chicks. All the while, the male is busy defending the territory and assuring a good supply of food will be available for the family. The summertime diet is almost exclusively insects, but the wintertime menu will also include berries.

An adult yellow-rumped warbler has a mass of 12 grams (0.42 ounces) and will weigh just a little more than two nickels. I mention this because I am constantly astounded by the fact that a creature so small is capable of flying from the far north of Canada to Cuba and even the southern border of Panama. So, if you have even the slightest chance of going out in search of the crowned moth-eater, it would be worth the effort. A mid-winter bowl of clam chowder might be the tantalizing reward that convinces you to try.

Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 27 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and he currently teaches high school biology and physics. For more in formation visit his website at www.speakingofnature.com, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.