Can you name this male warbler? The Free Warbler Photo ID Guide will be helpful to get you in the spirit for the arrival of migrating warblers in the weeks to come (Hooded Warbler photo by Leon Dsilva). Can you ID this one? (Prothonotary Warbler by Jack Rogers)

Warblers are among the most exciting spring migrants for many birders, but they can be challenging birds to identify due to their considerable diversity, small sizes, and different plumages for adult males and females. Now you can refresh your memory and learn more about the diversity of warblers that will soon be migrating across the United States and Canada by downloading the Free Warbler Photo ID Guide. Just in time for spring migration, the guide is produced and distributed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the associated Bird Academy.

A few tips for finding warblers in your area is to check along the edges of layered woodland habitat and scan low and high as you watch for motion among the leaves, branches, and trunks. Zero in on moving birds, focusing on one bird at a time, studying its plumage colors and other features, and progress from there. Where there is one species, there are usually more, with mixed flocks most common. Different species will migrate into your area each week, primarily from the last week of April through the first week of June, depending on what region of the country you are birding.

Even before you start searching for warblers, narrow the species down to those that are specifically found in your area during migration. The Guide divides the warblers into 3 groups – west, east, and widespread – and each species is illustrated by a color photograph, including photos of a male and female if the sexes show different coloration, as most warbler species do. In this way the Warbler Photo ID Guide provides a great resource when you are in the field and want to double-check on the identity of an interesting warbler foraging before you. Rather than taking a book-sized field guide in hand, you can easily refer to a folded piece of paper stored in a pocket of your shirt, pants, or jacket. If you are just learning to identify warblers, it can be helpful to print another set of Guide pages and post them on the wall in your house where you will see them as you pass by periodically.

The Free Warbler Photo ID Guide comes as a PDF download that you can view on a computer, tablet, cellphone, or you can print the pages; for more information and to download your Free copy, see Free Warbler ID Guide PDF (allaboutbirds.org)