I headed back down to the Riverbend Environmental Center to hopefully refind the Virginia's Warbler and get some photos of it this time. There were several birders watching the hillside from the parking lot when I got there. Birds present along the hillside included 4 Golden-crowned and 2 Ruby-crowned Kinglets, 3 Yellow-rumped Warblers, and 3 Pine Warblers.
After about a half-hour, someone spotted the mostly grayish bird in some thick vine tangles halfway up the hill. It liked to stay inside them, making it real tough to get a clear photo.
Eventually, I was able to get some more open, yet still distant, photos of it on the outside edge of the vines, revealing its bold white eye ring, faint yellow breast patch, yellow undertail coverts, and the small chestnut patch on the top of its head.
After a while of playing hide-and-seek in the vines, it flew down to the low shrubs along the creek.
From there, it got higher up in the trees at the wooden plank bridge just uproad from the parking lot.
It crossed the road and eventually got lost farther back in the vegetation on the south side of N. Spring Mill Road.
While trying to refind the bird, a leucistic female Northern Cardinal was spotted in that same area.
Back over near the parking lot, I found my first Palm Warbler of the year.
An Eastern Bluebird and an American Goldfinch were also nearby. The bluebird posed nicely for me.
I walked down the ravine below the parking lot and found a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, 2 Eastern Phoebes, and an Eastern Towhee.
The Virginia's Warbler was obviously a new Pennsylvania state bird and a new "photo bird", one that I had not had a photo of before. I had previously seen the bird in Arizona years ago but had never been able to get a photo of it, so it was a very successful day.
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