Black-throated Green Warbler

Warblers are busy, flighty, never still, especially a female who is likely feeding young. The views she gave me were brief at best. One second she was there, the next, gone.
Identification was what I was going for when I took a series of photos of this sweet female Black-throated green, foraging in the rhododendron thickets by Look Rock trail on the Foothills Parkway, near the Great Smoky Mountains. It was fun to later discover that in all that guess-work, I captured her with a worm in her bill. And since this was a new species for me, it was a great time to sketch. The experience was fresh, the bird new, and her shapes and colors could mingle intimately with the memory of our encounter. This made for smiling as much as sketching.

For more images of this sweet wood-warbler in her habitat click here.