Vermivora cyanoptera - Follow the Buzz!

What’s that sound? Buzz-buzz? Beee-buzz-buzz? 

No, we’re not stalking bees here. Terez and I are walking the side of this narrow road, cars passing us, drivers wondering what we’re up to as we point binoculars towards bushes, trees, and houses that happened to be in the vicinity of the sound we seek. 

In a world where buzzing is mostly associated with cell phones, considered normal if one carries the buzzing device around in public spaces, the buzzing of a bird is contrarian, abnormal, an anomaly. 

And we are excited as anyone expecting a call on those buzzing phones, perhaps from a loved one or the bank with the good news we are approved for a loan, necessary evil for owning a house or car, a piece of the so-called American Dream. 

But no, we are here by the cracked pavement trying to drown out the noise of a passing sports car, its engine revving with the sound of human extravagance, to listen like dogs at the sound of a door opening, knowing this is their owner coming home. 

We can smell it. We would wag our tails if we had them. 

And there, suddenly, in the opening between two trees a flash of bright yellow where the beee-buzz-buzz came from, then silence, then a chip-note unlike any other. Across the street in a tree the Blue-Winged Warbler sits like a fidgety child on a branch, and very briefly our sense of sight confirms the ID:

Bright-yellow body

Black-eyeline

Black, pointy bill

Blue-gray wings

Two obvious wingbars

Lifer! 

Life is good in all its abnormal, unexpected rarity.