• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

What is This? (1 Viewer)

michaelboustead

Well-known member
What is this? It is over topping trees at a good site for Blue-winged Warblers in South York County PA. No Blue-winged.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    175.7 KB · Views: 61
The flowers are a species of honeysuckle Lonicera, almost certainly one of the invasive Asian species. Although a serious problem weed in US forests, I'd doubt it is responsible for the decline of BWWarblers, though. For explaining that, I'd be looking more to habitat degradation from pesticide drift (insects declining not just in sprayed farmland, but in the whole environment), deforestation on their migration routes (can they find highly important stopovers to fatten up well enough for crossing the Caribbean??) and wintering areas, global warming (upsetting timing of maximum insect productivity away from nesting periods), and nest competition from Cowbird chicks.

The 5-pointed leaves (lower middle) are Virginia Creeper Parthenocissus quinquefolia, native in your area.

The pinnate leaves (top left) might be Tree-of-heaven Ailanthus altissima, but pic isn't large enough to be certain. If it is, that's another problem invasive in N America.
 
Last edited:
Warning! This thread is more than 10 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top