On Sunday morning there was a huge commotion on the back porch.  Norman had caught this warbler.  Her wing has been stripped of some crucial flying feathers, but otherwise she was fine.  She could fly, but only about knee high.  We took her in Harbour’s bathroom to recuperate for a few days.  Warblers, are one of a few birds who are surprisingly, ‘tame’.

The first day we didn’t know what to feed her.  After looking on the internet we found that she likes mealy worms.  She, actually, LOVES mealy worms (sorry turtles) and has eaten about 7 this morning alone!  She will take them right out of my hand!!  So cute!  The following pictures you can see her eating them.  It is cool because she runs them through her beak like a corn cob!

You can see what is going on in the reflection of the mirror.  She has the worm in her beak on the left, while below you can see the worm half way down her throat!  This is a Nashville Warbler.  We  think this is a female, because she doesn’t sing.  She does seem to like it when we whistle tho!  We also have House Wrens, sadly one crashed into our slider and died this morning. 

 

 

Here are some other cool sites about her:

 

Song

Habitat

What Bird?

 

We observed her beak is pointed, which is why we thought she would eat insects and worms instead of a short thick beak like a sparrow who mostly eats seeds. 

 

We noted her belly to be more yellow, maybe so when the cats look up at her they think they are seeing sunshine, instead of a bird!  Likewise, her back is the colour of the ground, to protect her while she feeds.

 

 

Update!  This is actually a Nashville Warbler, not a Wren as I originally said—  My bird book says these birds aren’t in Virginia, but the internet says they do migrate through Virginia on their way to Mexico—where they winter over!  Oops!