We’re winding up the year sharing the most popular — and we hope most compelling — Flying Lesson stories from 2020. Most of the posts are profiles of bird encounters, including this story of a Prothonotary Warbler we crossed paths with for a visit we still treasure. We’re posting one of the highlight pieces each Sunday this month.
All warblers are wonderful to watch, particularly males in the spring. Nature gives them fresh feathers, all the better to snare a mate. For some warblers, spring markings and colors intensify to the point that they look nothing like their normal selves.
My favorite is the Prothonotary Warbler.
Of the 37 species in the Eastern U.S., the male Prothonotary is the only one that glows. His head is a saturated yellow-orange, earning him the nickname “Golden Swamp Warbler.”
Finding a Prothonotary feels like finding that last, hopelessly hidden Easter egg. You have to see it to fully appreciate it, and every time, he takes my breath away.
Yesterday we got lucky. A male in its full spring splendor shot out from under the bridge where Anders and I were standing and headed straight for a bush not 10 feet away and directly in front of us. In the past four years, we’ve seen this bird four times in four states without the lengthy encounter that this little bird gave us.
The visit was a photographer’s delight – perfect late afternoon light and a bird so hungry he foraged out in the open for a good 15 minutes.
Almost as soon as we moved into our new home not far from downtown Raleigh, N.C., we started hearing our owl’s “Who Cooks for You” hoot. 
Robert Rice, a veteran bird scientist who spent his career with the Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center, explained what happens: “They can eat so much fruit, it ferments in their gut and they go wobbly for a while,” Rice said.
It’s a magnificent sight, one I assumed I’d miss this year with our limited mobility. But the other day, wandering through the trees not 50 feet from our home, I noticed what looked like a new arrival. It was the first of a flock of Cedar Waxwings that gradually became an avalanche, all collecting insects as if their lives depended on it.
That loud, distinctive whistle is often the earliest note of the morning in much of the country. When the full bird orchestra eventually joins in, the Cardinal still holds the first chair.
