Hello Tweets,

I was so happy to return from Maui and see everything so verdant and lively. This morning as I was listening from my window, I heard a Hammond's Flycatcher calling from the forest, and a Hutton's Vireo was repeating its metallic notes.

While working on my homework in the evening, I heard vireo song once more. But suddenly the song departed from the monotone repetition I expected - this vireo was no Hutton's!

While I never laid eyes on the Cassin's vireo, even as I sprinted outside to get a look, I still got to enjoy the bird's lovely sliding notes, one of my favorites of any bird. My pishing did not lure in the vireo, but did succeed in attracting my FOY Black-throated Gray Warbler, singing softly and catching flies, with missing feathers on the left flank.

In the evening, sunlight concentrates on the east side of the ravine where I live, bringing insects towards the warmth and subsequently drawing in migrant passerines. This is my theory for why good migrants come by my yard late in the day -; such as the Nashville Warbler last spring around the same time of month and similar time of day in the same tree as the Black-throated Gray!

Good birding, Joshua Glant
Mercer Island, WA