There’s no big mystery about this bird’s identity. We’re in southern France, it’s getting to be late May, and melodious warblers like this one are are busy and noisy on the edges of marshes and woodlands everywhere.
But play along here for a moment. When I’m out and about and smugly identify one of those challenging little brown birds, or yellow birds, or green birds, I like to step back and ask myself what usually turns into a truly disturbing question:
What if I were to run into this bird someplace where the species is utterly unexpected? Would I think of a hippolais warbler at all, or would I try to squeeze it into the procrustean mental image I hold of an entirely different bird? And just how many genuine rarities do I overlook as something familiar but just a tiny bit “off”?
“Bird every bird,” they say. Little yellow warblers help me try to remember to do just that.
