Sunday, April 23, 2023,
This past Tuesday, I had to take a day off from work to take care of a particularly onerous and exceedingly sad task. Afterwards, I went to Frank Melville Park in Setauket, which was fairly close by. If you happen to be a regular reader here, you know that Frank Melville is one of my favorite parks. There’s lots of wildlife there, but I also love meeting all the dogs. It’s not a “dog park” per se, but dogs are welcome as long as they are leashed. I know many of the dogs better than I know their owners. And there’s nothing like interacting with a friendly dog to bring you out of whatever funk you might be in.
I walked through the park, petted some dogs, and chatted with their owners. It was a good morning, and much needed. There is nothing like a happy dog to cure what ails you. I returned to my truck, put away my camera and tripod, and was backing out of my parking space, when I saw my friend Stephanie in my rearview mirror. So, I pulled back into my space, and went to say “Hi”. It turns out that she was there to meet another friend of mine, Daryl, and his wife Lindsay. All three are wonderful folks, so I decided to join them, despite the fact that I had already done a full circuit of the park. Look, good friends are good friends and, to be honest, I need the exercise. 🙂
I should also mention that Daryl is a veritable bird magnet. He can find, and identify, birds better than pretty much anyone else I know, and I know a lot of birders. Daryl is also one of my favorite photographers. No lie. His work is amazing. If he wasn’t so likeable, I would hate him. 🙂 So, I pulled my equipment back out of my truck, and Stephanie and went to catch up with Daryl and Leslie. It didn’t take long because, if you’ve ever spent much time with wildlife photographers, you know that they can camp out at the same spot for quite a while. We can be a boring lot. Not so much to ourselves, but girlfriends and spouses often do a lot of eye-rolling.
So, anyways, as we were walking along the main pond at Frank Melville Park, Daryl spotted this handsome critter. The Prothonotary Warbler is, apparently, a rare visitor to Long Island. I was lucky enough to get these shots, but without Daryl’s keen eye and knowledge of birds, these would never have happened. You rock, Daryl. JK.
These are SUPER shots — especially the first one! Excellent job! I think I might have seen one once when out with Sue Krause — but that’s it, just that once. Great work!
Thank you, Michele. As far I can recollect, this was the first one I had ever seen, although, I went back to Frank Melville Park yesterday, and saw him again. JK.
He was waiting for you! 🙂
He waited for you! 🙂
By the way, why does this warbler have this name?
In looking up the word “prothonotary”, this is what it means:
ounHISTORICAL
noun: prothonotary
a chief clerk in some courts of law, originally in the Byzantine court.
Michele, one of the birders I met on Saturday, a gentleman from Ireland, told me that the name comes from the color of the robes of Protonotaries in the Catholic Church. JK.
Ahhhhh! That works! Okay. It seemed such a strange name for a bird, but, like the cardinal, it seems to be related to church hierarchy. Interesting.
Ahhhhh! That’s the origin! Similar to the cardinal. Interesting.