Spring is certainly in the air! With the warming weather and increased bird song that can only mean one thing...it's spring migration! Be on the lookout, at this time of year birds begin passing through and some of our familiar summer faces will soon be returning. We've already had Black-chinned Sparrow heard at one of our Coastal Sage Scrub point counts. If you're lucky you may even get to see a vagrant that got a little lost. This week's featured bird is the Orange-crowned Warbler (photo by Holly Garrod).

The Orange-crowned Warbler are an overall dull olive-yellow color with a dark eye line and a thin, pointed bill. While you seldom see the orange crown which they are named for, you can often also see a white eyebrow and a broken eye ring which help distinguish this species. On the west coast we see a subspecies that has much more yellow compared to the inland subspecies which shows much more gray in the head and chest feathers. You've probably heard their trilling song of sweet, clear notes echoing around the oak trees. Orange-crowned Warbler song is variable however and often you will hear different "neighborhoods" have slightly different variations on their song. Orange-crowned Warblers are ground nesters. They are also one of the earliest spring migrants, and they winter farther north compared to most other warblers. Studies have shown that it is probably food and not weather that actually drives their migration northward in the spring.

Here are other birds that have been seen or heard around Starr Ranch this week: