A Different Kind of Summit

Adirondacks 2016: Year of the Warblers

Previous visits to the Adirondacks were often subject to those grueling hikes to exposed rocky summits and the rewarding views (and selfies) that await at the top of a mountain. But this year’s rewarding views were those views that I’d completely overlooked for the past 20+ years, views of the sounds that I took for granted, views of the birds I’d never known to exist. Yeah, I’m about to go all Emerson on you now…

Adirondack Park in upstate New York is my mainstay getaway. Every couple of summers––from the time I was a little bald baby mounted on my dad’s backpack or a young boy learning to paddle in Seventh Lake, up to present day and my periodic purges of office life and city living––I’ve found respite in the solitudes of the North. The High Peaks, the boreal bogs, the morning fog rising across thousands of lakes, the scent of pine, the call of the Loon, the clear night skies. And of course, most recently, the warblers.

Apart from the thrill of the chase (gotta catch ’em all), a degree of the obsession I’ve developed for these quirky little birds stems from their improbable gift for hiding in plain sight, the way that they’re so distinctive, so gaudy, yet so easily overlooked. And it blows my mind to imagine how many times I’ve walked right past a warbler or five without the slightest inkling of their very existence in the animal kingdom, especially so for all of my trips to the Adirondacks, which is home to ~30 of North America’s ~50 breeding species each summer.

So, this summer, having spent the past two years seeking out warblers in every direction within three or four hours of Baltimore, I finally decided it was now time to rediscover the Adirondacks *with an eye for the Parulidae* (groans).

Meacham Lake State Park

My latest home base is Meacham Lake State Park, which sits on the northern edge of the Adirondacks, just south of Debar Mountain (the perfect overnight backpacking trip, by the way). Barring the odd weekend ragers next door, the hike-in sites on Meacham Lake West offer a more relaxed, authentic camping experience, not to mention some of the clearest night skies I’ve witnessed anywhere in the country.

From the moment I rolled down my windows, it was obvious: the warblers abound. By the time I staked down my tent, I’d counted nine species singing within earshot of my site: American Redstart, Black-and-white, Blackburnian, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Common Yellowthroat, Northern Parula, Ovenbird, Yellow-rumped

Simply recognizing the songs and bringing to mind a vision of these brightly colored birds would change my entire experience. I’d compare it to “putting a face to the name,” only these faces were like the faces at Holi, like a vivid scattering of colors, each one worthy of a portrait. After sleeping off the eleven hour drive from Baltimore, I set out early the next morning, windows down, ears to the trees.

Clear Pond sits just north of Meacham Lake, and I had the pleasure of driving past this view on my exit from the campground each morning. Moreover, this Common Yellowthroat had a nest nearby. It’s one of the most widespread warblers in North America and one that I could find without much effort back home in Maryland, but even these garden variety warblers are relatively unknown to the non-birding community. I’d never heard of them until a few years ago.

Paul Smith’s Visitor Interpretive Center (VIC)

A year or two ago, I might have scoffed at the idea of hiking around a “visitor interpretive center” while vacationing in the Adirondacks. My journey usually begins and ends amid sprawling wilderness, and I prefer to find solace in the untapped reaches of the natural world, and I would never encounter the elusive creatures of the north along a popular boardwalk within a few hundred feet of the road, etc., etc.

But bird photography often requires a different train of thought. There are exceptions––species that remain deep within the forest and out of site––but many warblers can be found just about anywhere within their range, if it contains enough suitable habitat. And when a tiny bird has just flown thousands of miles north from Colombia or Venezuela, I’d imagine he or she has encountered plenty of people along the way and doesn’t mind so much to settle down near the visitor center or catch the occasional glimpse of boardwalk foot traffic.

Back home in Maryland, I’d spent entire days searching for Blackburnian Warblers in the Central/Southern Appalachians, only to come up short every time. But the Adirondacks were a very different story. The pine forests and boreal habitats are ideal nesting grounds for Blackburnians, and I could hear them singing from my campsite, in parking lots, and yes, frequently along trails at the Paul Smith’s VIC. Other warbler species found at the VIC included Nashville, Palm, Chestnut-sided, and Magnolia, as well as all of the same species that were found at Meacham Lake.

The Boreal Life trail at the Paul Smith’s VIC is one of many popular hikes for first-time visitors, tourists, and obsessive mid-twenties bird photographers like myself. Despite hearing the Blackburnian Warbler throughout my trip, this encounter on the Heron Marsh trail was my only clear sight of one.

The American Redstart: a more common warbler, once you know that there are warblers at all. Go ahead and google the term “warbler.” Do these look like the birds that you’d expect to find in the Northeast woods each summer?

Bloomingdale Bog

“Hiking” usually involves some sort of an upward ascent, and perhaps a few switchbacks or abrupt corners. Hiking the Bloomingdale Bog Trail? Not so much. Let’s just say that there is no getting lost on this trail. It’s about 20 miles of flat, straight, repurposed railroad grade, and passes through a variety of ideal birding habitats, including one of the park’s largest bogs. Again, warblers that I’d gone to great lengths to pursue back home were commonplace here on their breeding grounds.

*Layman’s biology lesson…Warblers are insectivores. And bogs are full of insects, meaning bogs are full of warblers. Bad news: mosquitoes feed on you. Good news: warblers feed on mosquitoes. Point being, warblers are your allies in the war against mosquitoes.*

I prefer Bloomingdale Bog to the VIC, simply for the remote setting. Same birds, but without the foot traffic. There were two mornings when I walked (casually, in a straight line) for three or four hours without crossing anyone’s path. That afforded me all of the time required to stake out my spots and wait for that perfect moment to make the most of my low budget 55–300 zoom (per previous story, in terms of equipment, I’m punching well above my weight).

Prior to this trip, I’d only seen Palm Warblers silently passing through Maryland en route to the boreal forests further north. The Adirondacks sit on the southern edge of their breeding range.

Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warblers are winter residents back home in Maryland, but they fly west to the Appalachians or north to places like the Adirondacks to nest each summer.

The highlight of Bloomingdale Bog was this Magnolia Warbler. I usually see them passing through Maryland in the Fall, when their bright breeding plumage has faded to something much less photogenic.

The Black-throated Green Warbler is my personal favorite. It’s one of the first warblers I ever photographed and one that I can usually count on finding each summer at higher elevations along the Appalachian Trail. It was a nice change of pace this summer to find them via casual stroll through Bloomingdale Bog.

As with the Blackburnian Warbler, I’d jumped through flaming hoops in my attempts to locate a Nashville back home. But they were out in numbers on the Bloomingdale Bog trail, and their incessant songs grew very familiar.

Massawepie Area

Okay, so between the casual out-and-back strolls and self-guided tours of the visitor center boardwalks there were some true adventures off the beaten path, including my trip to the Massawepie Area, a conservation easement area owned and operated by the Boy Scouts. The area is closed to the public from June 15th through August 31, meaning I’d arrived just in time (June 8th) to set out in search of warblers without having to enlist in the Boy Scouts or join a summer camp or something. I signed in near the entrance and proceeded to rattle my little old ’05 Mazda 6 along the gravel Massawepie Road until it reached a fork and a trailhead near Horseshoe Pond.

The Northern Parula is one of the first warblers to have been discovered in North America, hence the family name of Parulidae — or something like that. Fact check? Google?

Anyone who grew up watching nature documentaries will be all too familiar with the tale of the determined wildlife photographer who found his most sought after subject––after days of carefully tip-toeing through the forest, pausing to listen, burning a hole through the bushes with his obstinate stare––only to be blindsided by some unrelenting monsoon rains that keep him holed up in his tent for days on end, waiting for the storms to cease, in hopes of relocating that elusive creature once more and––yeah, this wasn’t that, but you get the idea.

For some context, the Mourning Warbler is a member of the genus, Oporornis, which includes four especially camera-shy species who have developed something of a reputation for making photographers hate their lives. You can find them, you can hear them, you can glimpse them, but you’ll be damned if you ever photograph them. They prefer dense vegetation of the shaded forest understory, they rarely venture into the open, they just sit around inside all day playing video games, etc. Add to that the shortcomings of my “intermediate” level used camera, lack of a decent flash set-up, and severe shortage of focal length, and it becomes even more of a challenge. I need plenty of natural light, a bird in the open, and a bird who’s within, say, 15 feet of my camera. But the Massawepie Area contains the Mourning Warbler’s preferred habitat, and there was always the possibility that I might hear one out there.

Loe and behold, hiking past a ravine near the southeast shore of Horseshoe Pond, surrounded by thick vines, tangles, and undergrowth to both sides, and there it was, the decisive ringing song of a Mourning Warbler. Typically, I’ll spend up to 30 or 40 minutes waiting it out, before moving on with my hike. But it took about that much time just to get a look at this one as he flew across the trail for the first time. Some more time passed, another brief glimpse, and repeat. By the time I’d worked out his movement and found a few gaps in the leaves, the clouds had rolled in and blocked out too much light. I couldn’t shoot fast enough or sneak close enough to capture anything worthwhile. And when your luck’s out…yep, then the clouds opened up, the rain poured down, and I took shelter to wait it out for another hour, feeling like Nigel Marven or something.

Eventually, it let up. And maybe the rain confused the whole situation––or maybe this little bird forgot for just a moment that we’d been playing cat and mouse for the past two hours––but just as that storm let up, and just as the sun peaked through, he landed in a patch of light within a few feet of my face, hesitated, and then disappeared again. BOOM. GOT ’EM.

What? You’d be more excited if it was Vaporeon or Pikachu? #reallife #warblergo

Now, where were we? Oh yeah, Massawepie is an excellent spot to find nesting warblers of the Adirondacks. Am I losing you? Here’s the warbler:

The Mourning Warbler is a true “skulker,” and by far and away the most difficult warbler I’ve managed to photograph.

Other warblers that I found at Massawepie: American Redstart, Black-and-white, Blackburnian, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Chestnut-sided, Common Yellowthroat, Northern Parula, Ovenbird, Pine, Yellow-rumped

William C. Whitney

The William C. Whitney Wilderness has a remote feeling, similar to the Massawepie Area, but even more remote––nearly 20,000 acres of wilderness. The roads were very dicey and could have done some serious damage to my car if I hadn’t taken it slow. Most visitors paddle across Lake Lila and portage from lake to lake, but I took the trail up Mount Frederica to wrap up my trip with at least one typical “summit.”

I’ve read plenty of leads hinting that William C. Whitney was a great place to find Canada Warblers. And those leads were confirmed within a few hundred feet of the Lake Lila parking area. The Canada Warbler was my “nemesis bird” last summer, and it was a great relief to finally catch one in focus.

The Canada Warbler, a nemesis no more. As with many warblers, their range extends further south in the Appalachians, but they’re more common in the Adirondacks.

Other warblers of William C Whitney: American Redstart, Black-and-white, Blackburnian, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Chestnut-sided, Common Yellowthroat, Magnolia, Northern Parula, Ovenbird, Pine, Yellow-rumped, the kitchen sink

And did I mention the mink? Sighting of the trip, warbler or not.

In any case, 2016 was the year of the warblers…all about the warblers…one warbler, two warblers, red warbler, blue warbler, black warbler, blue warbler, old warbler, new warbler….And I can still embrace the Adirondacks for the panoramic views and the lakes and the mountains and the ridges. But now there’s that extra pulse in the forest, a brighter palette amid the deep greens and blues, a bolder reward at the end of each hike––or at the beginning of a hike, or in the middle of a hike, or over by the parking lot, or back at camp––something that seems so ubiquitous, but it’s actually so unique and so instantaneous. A pocket-sized songbird who’s spent half of his life in the tropics and looks and sounds the part, one whose colorful feathers will fade with the end of summer as he bids adieu to spend colder months in a more distant place. Nature for the hopeless romantic, or something like that.

But if you’ve read this far, I’ll take it you already have more than a passing interest in birds. And if you have more than a passing interest in birds, you should absolutely visit the Adirondacks. Try to soak it in, not just at a glance––don’t just check the summits off your list for snapshots and selfies. You’ll wish you’d really embraced every nuance of those transient moments when you’re back in the city, or unemployed, or soldiering through cover letters…or procrastinating with blog posts…So here’s today’s slightly relevant buzzword of the day, one that will serve you well in the ADKs: *attention to detail*