On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
I kind of like starting Mondays with beautiful birds from Albatrossity. Not to mention the charming stories. How about the rest of you? ~WaterGirl
Albatrossity
Spring in Flyover Country continues with some songsters. Warblers and thrashers and towhees are busting out their best songs for the spring season, and they like to show off for the camera sometimes!

One of the most welcome spring arrivals is the Northern Parula warbler. These are tiny warblers, weighing in at just a bit over the mass of a hummingbird. But they are noisy, especially for their size, and their buzzy trills high in the treetops are definitely a sign of spring!

Another loud songster, just back from the south, is the Brown Thrasher. these guys arrive here in mid-April, and you almost always hear them before you see them.

This part of Flyover Country has two species of Towhees, which overlap briefly at this time of year. Our winter-resident Spotted Towhees head back north and west in April, and are replaced by the summer-resident Eastern Towhees, who have been lounging in the southeast US all winter long. Formerly these were lumped together in the same species (Red-eyed Towhee), but their songs, behavior, and geographical distribution have allowed taxonomists to split them into two species these days. Here’s an Eastern Towhee, singing joyfully from a perch that was in a Spotted Towhee’s winter territory just a month ago.

Another vocalist that arrives in large numbers in April (although some now overwinter here these days) is the Field Sparrow. Their bouncy song is welcome and widespread in lots of Flyover Country in April.

Shorebird migration continues; some of them continue north and others can stay for the summer. This Spotted Sandpiper is one of the latter, and in a month or so it will be possible to see fledgling Spotted Sandpipers along our creeks and ponds.

A less common migrant in this part of the state (very common in the wetland complexes in central KS, however) is the White-faced Ibis. This is the western counterpart of the Glossy Ibis familiar to birders in the eastern US. It was a bit odd to find these marsh birds standing on a sandy beach at a local lake, but they are gorgeous birds when the light hits them right!

Finally, spring here is not really spring until the Prothonotary Warblers return. The golden singer in the swamp is a very local breeding bird here, since the appropriate habitat (flooded areas with trees that have nesting cavities) is pretty rare and local as well.

Another pic of a Prothonotary Warbler, just because.
Betty Cracker
Beautiful photos as always! You’re right about the White-Faced Ibis looking very much like the Glossy Ibises that fly through our swamp; I would not have known it was a different species.
Does anyone know about an app that can reliably identify bird calls? I read reviews every now and then in online birding publications and am under the impression there’s nothing so far that works all that well, but I thought maybe someone here would know of one.
Yutsano
Some of these birbs look bovvered…
p.a.
Great stuff. Again!
JPL
Prothonotary Warbler is gorgeous. Thank you so much for enlightening my day.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
All the pics are great but the Prothonotary Warbler coming in for a landing is spectacular! Thanks Albatrossity.
Amir Khalid
I especially like the pictures of the
protoprotonhyellow warbler.rikyrah
Gorgeous ???
Mary G
Always brightens up my Monday morning to see these birds.
JeanneT
These are fabulous little dinosaurs!
debbie
A couple of times, a Wilson’s Warbler has perched outside one of my windows upstairs and gifted me with a serenade or two. It’s saddening those years he doesn’t show up, but I guess he’s got a long list of places to visit.
MazeDancer .
Wonderful pictures! Clearly you love birds. (As do we all.)
Yutsano
@JPL: @Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): Can one be nominated for a Pulitzer just by being featured on a top 10,000 blog? Asking for a friend…
OzarkHillbilly
Prothonotary Warblers are my favorite warblers I think. Such a joy to catch that flash of yellow in our riparian forests.
Mo MacArbie
@Betty Cracker: I was wondering the same thing. I want to whistle the dee dee-dee doo-doo call into something and see what comes up. I did get a hit on one; I’m not the only person to hear that call as “cheeburger cheeburger cheeburger”.
You’d think twitter…
Laura Too
Love these! Audubon Society has an app we use to tease the Cardinals in summer. Lists the birds, their habitat, pictures and different calls. (mating, fears, alerts etc.) Very handy for novices to learn. We get better at identifying every year.
Mathguy
Thanks for these great photos. It’s nice to be reminded that there’s some beautiful wildlife in the Great Plains, if we just look for it.
arrieve
Those prothonotary pictures are amazing. They come through here during spring migration, but I’m rarely lucky enough to see one. And this year of course, when Central Park is too far to comfortably walk in a mask, I’m only seeing the birds that make it to Hell’s Kitchen. I have occasionally seen a warbler in the trees in the back of my apartment, but not this year.
WaterGirl
What a great collection of birds today!
Is it just me, or does the Eastern Towhee look pissed off?
Love the way the Field Sparrow and the Spotted Sandpiper blend in with their surroundings. Is it fair to think that is probably not a total coincidence?
The coloring on the two Glossy Ibis is so lovely.
MelissaM
Beautiful colors! I love the parula.
It also tickles me that many times, the smallest birds are the loudest. This spring I’ve heard some Carolina wrens and they are so loud! And then I spot them and they are so tiny. Makes me smile every time.
karensky
Ah, warblers.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Great shots.
Princess Leia
These are such a delight- so, so beautiful. Love how you capture their essence. Truly a balm for the soul- thank you so, so much!!
frosty
Beautiful pictures.
Miss Bianca
@Amir Khalid: Pro-tho-nota-ry Warbler! My goodness, it just *sings*, doesn’t it? : )
J R in WV
We have what I have always called goldfinches around here. Later on in summer they will be standing on goldenrods, a whole crowd of them, and when they explode in flight as you walk by, it’s an incandescent explosion of fluttering streaks of yellow fire. Or birbs, your choice. No clue if they’re related to the prothonatory(?) warbler — really, I’m with Amir on that word. Not English, Greek probably.
Years ago, before I retired, we had a sandpiper lay eggs out in the parking lot, in gravel inside concrete curbs in strips throughout the parking lot. People put up tape and signs to keep unobservant asses from walking on the “nest” and eventually there were babies. Plus the parents did that whole “I’m hurt — follow me away from the eggs/babies!” thing, which was amusing to see every day as people walked past their spot. No nest, really, just eggs lying on the gravel. 4 or 5 blocks away from the Kanawha River.
Thanks for the wonderful photos, David! Really good work!