Charley West and a couple of other crack birders did a “Gilligan’s Island”  (three-hour)  tour of DeKorte and  environs, including the Clay Avenue Wetlands, from 8 to 11 a.m. this morning. They came up with an awesome list of 54 species, which follows.

We joined them for a  few minutes on the Kingsland Overlook, and saw lots of Golden-crowned Kinglets and Cedar Waxwings in the Junipers, a Brown Thrasher, umpteen Yellow-rumps and Palm Warblers, plus several other nice birds.  Thanks, Charley! (And thanks to Dennis Cheesman for the shot of the Golden-crowned Kinglet, taken at lunchtime today on Kingsland — a Kingsland kinglet.)

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Dr. Ross Feltes, the Meadowlands Commission’s Supervisor of Natural Resources Management, pointed out last week that several Dogbane Moth Caterpillars were going to town on the Indian Hemp in Harrier Meadow.

He sure was right. There had to be at least a dozen caterpillars devouring the leaves. Here are some pix of same. The Indian Hemp seed pods resemble milkweed seed pods.  (Thanks, Ross!)

What kind of warbler is this? We think the photo above says it all, except that yesterday’s teaser asked what other kind of warbler it was. Literally speaking, the bird in yeserday’s photo is also a palm warbler.

(Please, no need to groan. It was a toughie, and no one answered correctly — though Dennis Cheeseman did mention something about a bird in the hand.)

You may be interested to know that this lucky warbler is also part of our new avian literacy program (below). This bird can’t read yet, but it can speak a form of pigeon English.

Congrats to all who answered the Blackburnian part correctly — this was a tough question to start out Tuesday Teaser-palooza with — some will be far easier. Sorry about that!