What warbler is this?

On a recent trip to the Snake River in Wyoming, I spotted this cute little yellow bird, which I had guessed to be a yellow warbler, but looking closer I think it might be a Nashville Warbler.  The pictures aren’t the greatest, but hopefully someone out there can weigh in with an opinion. Comment below. Thanks. Other views: Jumping to a branch, eating a worm, and not very focused.

20" Snake River Finespot, the fish of the trip

It’s always hard to post the last day of a trip partly because of how busy life gets when you are back and partly because I think it is hard to admit that the trip is finished.  Well, this trip ended with a bang.  After 2 days of beating the water into a lather with not many fish to show for it, we headed to the Snake River for a shot at redemption…and we found it.  After picking up our licenses, we hit the river about 9:30 AM.  We decided that our best hope lay at the Wilson Bridge. There is a great shelf at the foot of the bridge that we fished for about an hour getting chases on streamers and landing a few smaller trout on a dry and dropper rig.

I set out up stream and immediately found some amazing water and saw that there was a healthy green drake hatch underway, so I switched to an olive wulff and a beadhead PT dropper.  The results were nearly instant.  I hooked and landed a nice 16″ cutthroat and then another about 12″ inches long.  I walked the bank and cast nearly straight upstream and found the fish within about 1-6′ from the bank. I next hooked a little whitefish on the dropper.  Another hundred yards upstream I got a HUGE trout to take my fly, but somehow my knot came undone and I broke him off.  What a bummer.  I kept on with a few more fish in the 10-12″ range.

Paul and I met up again and found another monster … Continue Reading

(AP Photo/Wildlife Conservation Society)Reuters has a story on the large-billed reed warbler dubbed ”World’s least known bird” and it has been found breeding in Afghanistan.  Cool to hear stories like this were rare animals turn up in remote corners of the globe.  Apparently this is the largest ever find of these birds and so they are gathering a flood of new data on the species.  Thankfully these birds have chosen one of the quieter regions of Afghanistan to breed so hopefully they can survive the madness of wartime.  Sounds like an adventurous and possibly deadly trip to add to your life-list.  Are you an avid enough birder to make the trek during wartime?  Know any bird lovers serving in Afghanistan that might like to check it out?