I got my Chestnut Sided Warbler (FINALLY!!!)

Yes indeed!
After almost 3 years of constantly looking for this little warbler during winter and spring migration I finally had the chance to gaze upon him 3 different times. Too bad that not much chestnut could be noticed right now, on one male in particular Isaw the begginings of the chestnut. It was so cool!…I wished he made his please pleased to meetcha! call, but migratory warblers dont sing down here, they just go about pipping which is nice too.

Interestingly is that the Chestnut Sided Warbler (CSW) is very common during migration down here, but somehow he kept eluding me…sneaky fellow he is.

The CSW is a very beatiful warbler and holds a very special meaning to me, as you can see its on the blogs banner, now that I marked him on my checklist (im at 297 of 740 species right now) I will change the banner, the CSW will continue to feature on the banner but also ill put resident warblers probably Grace´s and Yellow Mangrove.

I couldnt get a photo, not even a crappy one, because the birds were real deep in the bushes and kept jumping all over the place (not common for warblers right jajaja), so i decided to get a good look instead of trying to get a bad photo, and believe me I got a good look.

Im very happy for the CSW sighting, also for the Xmas bird count last weekend, we saw less species than last year but all in all it was a good outing for birds and friendship, the birding was so good I got around 29 new life birds for myself!

Next year will be a The year warbler im up to 51% of the warbler checklist for Honduras and im gonna try and get to at least 65% or more. During the bird count I got me some nice life warblers: blue winged warbler, golden winged warbler, worm eating warbler, kentucky and ovenbird…and some of the usual suspects: maggies, hoodies and redstarts lots and lots and lots of em and a few Common yellowthroats, you could say I almost satisfied my cravings for warblers…great time for warblers right now.

Im eager to get me the 3 more life birds to top the year with 300 species, I still remember my first lifebird for 08 was the white winged tanager, nice bird, but not as nice as my CSW.

By the way….if you have a nice high resolution photograph of the CSW and would like to lend it to me so i could use it on the banner id be forever grateful

~ por Luis Daniel en diciembre 8, 2008.