Bay on the Bough

 

Oil on Panel - 4 x 4 inches

     This is a painting of a female, or immature male, Bay-breasted Warbler that came through my neck of the woods on August 13, 2025. It was hunting for insects fairly low in the branches of a spruce tree, about 15 feet up. It spent time in an adjacent cedar tree, too. These birds really like to eat spruce budworms, an insect that morphs into a small moth at maturity. Budworms can cause significant damage to balsam fir, white spruce, larch and hemlock forests. In turn, Bay-breasted Warbler populations can increase when there are severe budworm outbreaks. 
     Bay-breasted Warblers aren’t birds that I see often, and I’ve gotten lucky spotting them during fall migration, specifically around the second week of August at my home in Duluth, MN. They are a long-distance migrant that travels through the Caribbean to the northwestern reaches of South America in the fall. This year’s spring migration yielded my first-ever sighting of a breeding male Bay-breasted Warbler in Moose Lake, MN. What a handsome fellow!

Breeding male Bay Breasted Warbler, May 17, 2025. Moose Lake, Minnesota. Photo ©Becca Mulenburg

Stay wild, my friends!






Location: Duluth, MN 55811, USA

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