A flutter of gray and gold

When I lived in western North Carolina, I would make annual birding forays into the hills each spring. My first visits were to a local state park, where I reliably heard the song of a Louisiana Waterthrush that had returned to proclaim its stretch of stream corridor habitat for the summer. Next, I’d venture over to the state wildlife management area, where agency managers added diversity to the forested landscape that included early successional openings that Prairie Warblers found to their liking.

I stopped routinely at the same locations on the Blue Ridge Parkway that Kentucky Warblers and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks occupy, the same sites where Cerulean Warblers can still be found attempting to breed. The last places I visited were always the highest ridges and valleys, where the resident breeders are last to arrive. Among those that can be found at the highest elevations in the corner of the state bordering Tennessee and Virginia is the Golden-winged Warbler, a declining songbird species that requires a diversity of forest structure to meet its needs for the breeding season.

I enjoyed seeing each of the breeding birds that returned each year, providing nourishment for the eyes and ears, beginning with the first Blue-headed Vireo singing in “solitary” fashion (hence