Saratoga News Photograph by George Sakkestad Trudi Burney keeps an eye out for unusual feathered visitors to her back yard. Unlikely visitor lands in resident's backyard By Steve Enders Bird enthusiasts have been flocking to one local residence to catch a glimpse of a small bird that has decided to make Saratoga its new home. Trudi Burney says the bird landed in her yard a few weeks ago, and if she weren't an amateur birdwatching enthusiast, her new feathered friend might well have gone unnoticed. "I've gotten to know what birds are in my backyard," Burney says. "Usually they're just scrub jays and stuff, and then this guy shows up." The bird is a black-throated blue warbler, and is very rare to this area. To figure out just what it was, Burney first consulted her copy of the Audubon Society's North American Bird Guide, but she couldn't find a match of the species. But according to a birding software program Burney has on her computer, the bird's normal habitat is in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada. In the wintertime, the birds normally migrate to the tip of southern Florida. Not this bird though. For some reason he decided to go to California. Pat Curtis, owner of the Backyard Bird Feeder, recalls when she first learned of the find. "She came into the store and said she had this bird in her backyard. I said it was just a jay . . . I said it's just a blue bird. Then I gave her my camera to take a picture, and when I saw it, I said, 'Don't tell anyone what you saw, it's not supposed to be here!' " Photograph by Trudi Burney This black-throated blue warbler in Trudi Burney's backyard is a long way from home. Curtis says she and Burney spent more than an hour trying to come up with a matching description of the bird on the same software until they found one. Then Curtis posted a message on an email listing of the area's most experienced birders. Since putting the call out, nearly 30 bird enthusiasts have come to see the bird, which often eats from one of Burney's bird feeders. "This little guy has no idea that the who's who of the birding world is showing up to see him," Burney says. She has even welcomed county record-keepers--who have now officially documented the bird's arrival--into her home. Burney says they've told her that this is only the second sighting ever of a black-throated blue warbler in Santa Clara County. According to Burney and Curtis, birds are born with migration patterns already ingrained. If any bit of the genetic makeup is off in a bird, it can cause them to stray from their normal migration. "What's surprising is that he made it," Curtis says. Burney has taken photos of the bird, and can tell it's a male because of the dark colors. Females, she says, are more pale and don't carry the dark blue and black features. But the black-throated blue warbler isn't the only surprise. Another foreign bird has landed in her yard recently as well. The other is a white-throated sparrow, which isn't as rare, but is still a long way from its normal home in northern Canada. "I'm just lucky, I guess," Burney says. "Most probably wouldn't notice, but I just wonder how many other people along the creek have seen this bird?" [ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Saratoga News, January 27, 1999. ©1999 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.