Product Overview
Vintage Crossed Wing Collection Wood Warblers I by Paula Minkebige 31 Cross Stitch Pattern Booklet Charts Leaflet
Year: 1995
Publisher: Crossed Wing Collection
Title: Wood Warblers I
Designer: Paula Minkebige
Patterns Included: 10
Pages: 4 large fold-out pages
Technique: Cross Stitch
Condition: Vintage; pre-owned
Warblers are probably our favorite birds. There are others equally as colorful, many moreso, and their songs, though distinctive and always a joy to hear each spring, are certainly matched by other birds. What extra something them makes them special? They have come to represent, like canaries to the coal miners, a gauge of the health of our little corner of the planet. We anxiously await their passage each spring on migration to their nesting grounds; even moreso today than when we began paying attention to them 25 years ago, for there just aren't as many as their used to be.
At Mosquito Hill, a local nature center, there were days filled with warblers. A dozen Golden-Wingeds once surrounded me, and along the oxbow, the Yellow-Rumpeds were as numerous as mosquitoes. Paula's first warbler identification occurred on such a day, when the brilliant red-orange flash of a male Blackburnian greeted her at eye level and bit an arm's length away.
Now only the mosquitos are numerous, single birds make a migration for many species, and we worry. Is our worrying justified? As a group, these birds are referred to as wood warblers. A most appropriate adjective because they utilize the woods, from dogwood and mesquite and shrubby willow to the tallest pines and firs and oaks and maples, for nesting and foraging. A short drive in any direction from our home reveals why their numbers are dramatically down. Remember, they're called wood warblers, not suburb warblers, or mall warblers, or field corn warblers. Their woods are going, going, ... gone?
