Photos by Greg Seitz

The early birder gets the bird, or so the saying goes. That was why Kate and I found ourselves in the parking lot at Interstate State Park in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin at 7 a.m. last Saturday. We were not alone, joining about a dozen other people and at least sixty species of birds enjoying morning in the May woods.

We were there for a bird hike guided by Brian Collins, a beloved biology teacher at Unity High School in Balsam Lake and a bird surveyor for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources during summer. Last year, Brian was selected as a Wisconsin Teacher of the Year, and then the state’s sole representative to the national program. It’s easy to see why. He’s a passionate teacher and student of the natural world, and the joy of birds he shared with the group made it easy to absorb a lot of information.

It was especially easy to catch his passion on this particular morning. A cold front had moved in the previous day, and a north wind was holding most migrating birds in place, and they were thick in the lush trees of the park. The warbler family was particularly well-represented, with numerous individuals from numerous species present.

As Brian wrote in the note for his list of birds observed, about the nine Blackburnian warblers he detected: “Numerous Blackburnians singing, old white pine, good habitat, huge warbler wave stalled by weather. Warblerpalooza!!!”

We only walked a few steps before Brian stopped at our first station, where we would watch a stand of trees for the variety of birds that were flitting about. It quickly became apparent that there were a lot of species present and Brian’s and the excitement level ratcheted up.

“Birders call it a ‘panic,” Brian said of such occasions when there are suddenly so many species to see.

He first fell in love with birds when he was five-years-old, and has spent the last 50 years learning and sharing. We soon heard the song of an American redstart, a small black and orange warbler (for the adult males) that he said was his “spark bird” for watching “small birds” when he was in eighth grade. He praised the tiny creatures for their amazing migrations. While they don’t get their adult plumage until after their second year, by that time they will have flown across the Gulf of Mexico four times.

When he heard both Nashville and Tennessee warblers, Brian informed us they are the “only ones that sing country music.” There were chuckles and groans. In an interview last year, Brian explained his use of humor: “Dad jokes build resilience in teens. I tell dad jokes because that’s how ‘eye roll.’”

Walking up the hill away from the first spot, we paused where the road overlooks a ragged red pine forest. In the tops of the trees were numerous great blue heron nests, where the big birds were tending to chicks. Brian estimated 30 individuals in the rookery. He told us the young can be brutal “wrestlers,” with chicks sometimes forcing others out of the nest in their struggle for survival. The adult birds, on the other hand, engage in a unique courtship ritual. The male brings a stick to the female and fluffs his neck feathers. If she accepts him as a mate, she takes the stick from him.

On top of the hill, between a basalt hill and a low wetland, along the Silverbrook Trail, there were even more birds. A “hyper territorial” swamp sparrow perched in a willow and stood his ground. A female Baltimore oriole briefly perched nearby. A rose-breasted grosbeak sang from the tree tops. More warblers and other small songbirds flew between the branches, sometimes pausing long enough for a photo.

Noting a red-eyed vireo, Brian said it had come to this spot from the Amazon basin in South America. The bird, weighing maybe half an ounce, had traveled four thousand miles or more to get here this spring.

After a while, everyone was rubbing their necks from spending so much time staring up, and we were filled with the awe of a spring morning when life is everywhere you look.

By the time he was done, Brian had counted 62 species in the span of about three hours. View his complete list on eBird.