Perhaps the main thing you can do is to purchase shade-grown coffee. Yes, it really is that important. Anything with the Smithsonian “Bird Friendly” seal you can know with certainty will by 100% shade-grown, organic coffee.

The American Bird Conservancy does some fantastic work on the behalf of warblers (and all the other birds as well). Please consider donating to them. What’s more, until June 20, all donations (I don’t think memberships count) will be matched by private donors, up to $100,000. This is a great way to make your donation go even further.

Finally, here are some organizations that are working to protect the Appalachian region, home to the Cerulean Warbler. This bird is declining very rapidly, largely due to habitat loss on its breeding grounds. (Thanks to Cynthia Ellis for the links.)

• West Virginia Highlands Conservancy
• Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
• Appalachian Mountain Advocates

I’ve been at least vaguely aware of the Kirtland’s Warbler for almost as long as I can remember. As a kid, I was very interested in endangered animals, particularly birds. So it’s not surprising that the Kirtland’s, one of the rarest birds in North America, would have caught my attention. But I can’t remember knowing anything about the bird, other than that I’d likely never see one. Unhappily, I still haven’t seen a Kirtland’s. But I know much more about them now that I’ve read The Kirtland’s Warbler: The Story of a Bird’s Fight Against Extinction and the People Who Saved It.

The Kirtland’s Warbler is an attractive and, by all accounts, tame and endearing bird. It is also very interesting. Or, perhaps “fussy” would be the better description. It is extremely particular in where it will nest, only accepting large stands of jack pine trees of a certain height. Its entire breeding range is maybe a couple hundred square miles in the northern part of Lower Michigan, along with a few birds recently discovered breeding in Wisconsin and Ontario. As you can imagine, this also makes it an exceedingly rare bird, which only adds to its appeal to birders.

As interesting as the bird itself is, the story of its relationship to people, in particular its conservation, is even more fascinating. This is what William Rapai concentrates on in The Kirtland’s Warbler. As he writes in the introduction, “To tell the story of the Kirtland’s warbler is to tell a story of complex relationships between the bird and its environment, the bird and humans, and the bird and the state and federal governments’ complex policies toward it.”

The tale starts in 1851 with the first specimen collected. But it would be another 50 years until the Kirtland’s breeding grounds were discovered in 1903. Just a few years prior, the eminent ornithologist Frank Chapman, based on a specimen found in migration, posited that it bred in the Hudson Bay region. As it turns out, his hypothesis was quite off the mark. But, as Rapai points out, this general ignorance could very well have saved the species from extinction. If the breeding grounds were known, every collector and museum would have wanted a bird, nest, and/or egg specimen for their collection. In those days, a bird’s rarity did not engender restraint when it came to collecting. Quite the contrary, it only increased the appeal. Such collecting undoubtedly contributed to the extinction of other species, and could easily have been what pushed the Kirtland’s over that precipice.

The narrative really picks up in the early 1970’s with the formation of the Kirtland’s Warbler Recovery Team. This team, comprised of representatives from relevant groups and agencies, was tasked with keeping the bird from becoming extinct. I was surprised to find this story of conservation (salvation, really) and the people behind it to be incredibly interesting. One researcher became an infamous murderer. Later, a tragic, out-of-control prescribed burn took one life and destroyed much property, but also may have saved the warbler from extinction, or at the very least gave it a much-needed population boost.

The effort made to save this bird has been extraordinary. Thankfully, it has not been in vain. When I was reading about the Kirtland’s Warbler as a child, the prognosis was grim. But now, the latest survey (2011) recorded a record high of 1,828 singing males. However, as Rapai points out, the future of the warbler is still not certain. He describes the current and potential future threats to the bird and discusses the ongoing research. There just doesn’t seem to be any getting around the fact that in our human-altered world, extreme habitat specialists such as the Kirtland’s Warbler will likely always be dependent on conservation . But if there’s one thing that Rapai’s account makes clear, it’s that they’re in good hands.

Reading this book, as I did, so soon after Cerulean Blues makes comparing the two unavoidable. Both are well-written books about a threatened warbler. But that’s where the similarities end. The clue to their differences lies in the author and their approach. Cerulean Blues is very personal and informal; you learn almost as much about the author as you do the bird. This shouldn’t be a surprise, as personal is right there in the book’s subtitle. The writing, coming from an English professor, was extremely engaging and fun to read. As a former reporter, Rapai focuses strictly on the story; the author does not appear in the work. Although not as engaging on an emotional level as a personal story would be, it is still well-structured and well-told. Throughout this review, I’ve commented on how interesting the Kirtland’s Warbler and its history are. Much of that is inherent in the subject, especially for birders, but a great deal of it can be credited to the author.

Recommendation

As a kid, I don’t think anyone would have given me good odds that I’d still be able to see a Kirtland’s Warbler in 25 years. But today, the warblers are still hanging on and I fully intend on seeing one. And when I do, it will be thanks to the work done by all of those detailed in this book. Despite the odds, The Kirtland’s Warbler tells a happy story. It’s worth reading by anyone interested in this bird or, especially, conservation.

This review is a part of Warbler Week – a celebration of warblers in print and other media.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of warbler books, I think of identification guides. There are several such guides, but at least among this group I do have a clear-cut favorite – A Field Guide to Warblers of North America, in the Peterson field guide series.

But the granddaddy of all warbler books, even though it doesn’t focus exclusively on them, just might be Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 15: Weavers to New World Warblers. It covers all of the world’s wood-warblers, and has some of the best photos you’ll ever see of them. If I needed to find out something about warblers, this is the first place I’d look. However, it’s not cheap. If you’d like to have a book that contains all the warblers (not just the North American representatives) without having to take out another mortgage, then there is Warblers of the Americas: An Identification Guide. It’s a little old now, and from what I understand the text may not be the best. But I think the art is great.

Speaking of old books, there are also the classic warbler texts by Frank Chapman and Alexander Sprunt, Jr. Chapman’s The Warblers of North America, first published in 1907, features art by the legendary Louis Agassiz Fuertes. The text, however, seems dry and straight-to-the-point. In contrast, The Warblers of America (1957 and updated in 1979) by Sprunt is much more readable and also contains essays by other ornithologists (such as “The Resident Warblers of the West Indies”, by James Bond (whom the fictional spy was named after)). The color plates aren’t the best, but have a charm to them. Of the two, I have to say that I prefer Sprunt.

But if I had to pick, Chasing Warblers, by Vera and Bob Thornton, just might be my favorite. In it, the authors describe their quest to photograph all of the nesting warblers of the U.S. and Canada. I read this book a long time ago, back when I had been birding for less than a year and had seen only a handful of these birds. It was thrilling to read about all these warblers that I also hoped to see some day. I’m curious to see if it holds up for me now that I’ve seen most of them. But there’s no doubt that the Thornton’s photos are still fantastic!

So what about you, what’s your favorite warbler book?

This post is a part of Warbler Week – a celebration of warblers in print and other media.

If you don’t already have this guide (and if you’re a birder in North America, you should), check out the new and improved review of A Field Guide to Warblers of North America.

This post is a part of Warbler Week – a celebration of warblers in print and other media.

Watching Warblers
Watching Warblers West

These two DVDs from Birdfilms almost single-handedly make up for the lack of warblers in digital media with their exceptional quality. Together, these two films feature all the breeding warblers of the United States and Canada. The video footage is simply amazing and looks spectacular on these discs. But not only are these a feast for the eyes, you’ll also learn a good bit about the birds as well.

If you like warblers, you’ll love these DVDs. For more details, here is my full review of Watching Warblers and Watching Warblers WEST.

birdJam HeadsUp Warblers

HeadsUp Warblers is an app for the Apple family of mobile devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad) dedicated to North American warblers. It includes some beautiful photos (although not enough to cover the entire spectrum of warbler plumages), but really shines in the audio department, as would be expected from birdJam. Each species has multiple sound clips and a nice feature makes it easy to compare birds by song type.

However, as nice as some of the features are, I’m not sure it provides enough value to recommend it in addition to a general field guide app. Full review of birdJam HeadsUp Warblers.

If you know of any other “digital warblers”, I’d love to hear about them.

This post is a part of Warbler Week – a celebration of warblers in print and other media.

It’s an inescapable truth that having children means that you will become more familiar with kids’ TV shows than you ever wanted to. The most surprising thing to me – after discovering how annoyed I get over some of the more ludicrous plot holes, especially on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse – is how many episodes of various shows deal with birds and birdwatching. Curious George, one of my daughter’s favorites, has several such episodes. In one, The Man in the Yellow Hat, George’s owner, writes a book about the Cerulean Warbler – “Everything you wanted to know about the Cerulean Warbler in just 1400 pages!” My first thought when I saw that was “Wow, I’d love to read that!” But, of course, that book didn’t exist. No matter now, because we have Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird.

Cerulean Warblers are amazing birds. Visually, they stand out even amongst the striking birds that are the wood-warblers. They undertake a mind-boggling migration (that includes crossing the Gulf of Mexico!) twice each year. And, unfortunately, they are uncommon and declining. Ceruleans are high on any birder’s want list, and seeing one is almost always the highlight of a birding day. So it’s not really surprising that Katie Fallon wrote a book about them. What was surprising, however, is that she was researching (read: obsessing about) the bird and planning this book even before she had actually seen a Cerulean Warbler. But, then again, Ceruleans can have that effect on people.

Cerulean Blues begins with a quick overview of the Cerulean Warbler in American ornithology, including its treatment by Alexander Wilson, Audubon, Bent, and Paul Hamel, the author of its Birds of North America account and the “godfather of cerulean warblers”.

When it comes to describing how and where the bird lives, Fallon doesn’t simply regurgitate the facts. Instead, in a narrative that is divided into the seasons of the Cerulean Warbler’s life – spring, summer, and fall – she takes us to the warbler. She joins a research team in West Virginia and helps capture and band warblers. Later, she hopes to see fledgling Ceruleans at a study site in Tennessee where other researches have been attempting to discover the bird’s nesting habitat preferences. And finally, she attends a conference on Cerulean Warblers in Colombia and tours the Cerulean Warbler Reserve, the first South American reserve for a bird that breeds in North America.

Cerulean Blues is not meant to be an exhaustive natural history of the Cerulean Warbler. But you’ll still learn much about this bird as information is related along the way, including some really interesting facts. For example, Fallon learns that nests are usually above open areas and relays:

Female cerulean warblers have been observed “bungee jumping” from their nests down into this open area below; the female birds suddenly “fall” from their nests headfirst toward the ground before zipping away into the undergrowth just before impact. Some biologists think the females may be imitating falling leaves in an attempt to depart from their nests unnoticed.

In the Curious George cartoon, The Man in the Yellow Hat wrote his book to draw attention to the plight of the Cerulean Warbler. Fallon was motivated by the same thing. It really is alarming—the Cerulean Warbler population is declining by about 3% a year, which means that there are now 80% fewer than there were just 40 years ago. The main threats seem to be mountaintop removal mining in their breeding range and full-sun coffee plantations in Central and South America where they winter. The author goes into detail on each, sometimes painfully so:

It was tragically poetic—as I stood staring at a mountaintop removal mine, the fastest-declining warbler in the United States sang above me. How many ceruleans had once claimed territories on that opposite ridge? Where were they now? Had they returned from South America only to find their instinctual breeding grounds completely gone, destroyed by the very mine I was photographing?

Arguably, the most important word in this book’s title is personal. Fallon often shares things unrelated to the topic at hand, from the efficacy (or lack thereof) of a new deodorant she was trying out, to her experience during and after the horrible shootings at Virginia Tech, where she was teaching at the time. Rather than distractions, I felt these were nice touches that really added to the story. As Cynthia Ellis commented on this site’s Facebook page, Katie Fallon poured her “heart and soul” into this book. That much is made clear very early on in this book and reaffirmed with every page read.

As we’ve seen, Cerulean Blues contains travel narrative, natural history information, conservation threats, and personal observations and circumstances. This could have been a complete mess, but Fallon skillfully weaves these disparate threads together into a story that is a pleasure to read. I found it extremely well-written, but I suppose that should be expected since the author is an English professor.

Recommendation

At the end of the Curious George episode, after they’ve succeeded in getting a book store to carry the Cerulean Warbler book, the owner of the store says that “[the book] made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me give half the proceeds to The Warbler Foundation”. Trite, maybe, but I can honestly make that claim about the book reviewed here. Cerulean Blues made me laugh and cry, and even moved me to make a donation (but to an actual organization) and look into further ways that I can help this imperiled bird. And that – even beyond being entertaining, informative, and beautifully written – is the true value of this book. I think anyone, whether or not they particularly like birds, would enjoy this book. But those that do like birds, especially the enchanting Cerulean Warbler, or are concerned about bird conservation in general need to read Cerulean Blues.

This review is a part of Warbler Week – a celebration of warblers in print and other media.

I love warblers. If you’re a birder I could stop right there, for the reasons why are obvious to you and no further explanation is needed. But if you have no idea what I’m talking about, the warblers are a family of small, insectivorous songbirds found in the Americas (sometimes called New World warblers or wood-warblers to differentiate them from the unrelated warblers of the Old World). Very few warblers will visit bird feeders, and most of them remain hidden in the upper reaches of trees or within thick vegetation. This means that, unless you’re actively looking for them, you are unlikely to see one. And that’s a shame, because many of them are absolute stunners! For my money, warblers – as a group – are the most attractive birds in North America.

But flashy good looks aren’t nearly the only reason to love warblers. This is an extremely interesting and diverse group of birds. One is among North America’s rarest birds and many others are in trouble. Most undertake amazing migrations every year. Many are hard to find, and can be difficult to identify once you do (which only serves to increase birders’ desire for them).

Overall, this is just a great group of birds; one worth celebrating. And since it is currently the peak of warbler migration throughout much of North America, I thought now would be a good time to do it. This week, The Birder’s Library will present some warbler-related reviews and posts. I hope you enjoy them almost as much as the birds themselves.

• Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird – Warbler Week starts out with a review of one of my favorite books from this past year
• Digital Warblers – A survey of warblers in digital media
• Revisited Review of A Field Guide to Warblers of North America
• Favorite Warbler Book – I try to pick out my favorite
• The Kirtland’s Warbler: The Story of a Bird’s Fight Against Extinction and the People Who Saved It – A history of mankind’s dealings with this intriguing bird, especially those people who have studied and saved it from extinction.
• How to Help Warblers

The Young Birder’s Guide to Birds of North America

2008 saw the publication of the excellent The Young Birder’s Guide to Birds of Eastern North America, by Bill Thompson III. Just about the only negative thing that could be said about it was that it only covered the eastern half of North America, with no corresponding western guide. Well, Thompson has now remedied that.

This new Young Birder’s Guide is essentially the previous eastern guide with about 100 additional, mostly western, birds. All of the 200 accounts from the previous guide have been carried over, largely untouched. The only changes I’ve noticed are the combining of a few birds with their western counterpart (i.e. Eastern and Western Wood-pewees, and Eastern and Spotted Towhees), and the replacement of a couple photos (for example, the female “Slate-colored” Dark-eyed Junco is now an Oregon type).

Everything about this guide has been tailored specifically for children 8-12 years of age, give or take. I wish that something like The Young Birder’s Guide had been available when I was that age!