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WITH THEIR BRIGHT colors, unique patterns, and flitting movements, warblers beguile and challenge even the most seasoned bird photographers. Originally a silly bit of online slang attached to cute bird photos, our social media lexicon has now grown: "birb" for small, round, cute birds; "borb" for those especially round; and "floof", for a bird that is fluffed up. Moving slowly with his window down, Vermont photographer and naturalist Mark Paul often takes backroads home to seek migrant warblers. [Extracted from the article]

But the coronavirus crisis upended the traditions, celebrations, and economy built around their northward journeys. The Biggest Week in American Birding ordinarily draws around 90,000 people and injects some $40 million into the economy of northwest Ohio, where spring migrants pile up to rest and refuel along Lake Erie's southern shore each May. And as the bird-curious tweeted about species they'd never noticed and texted birder friends for help with IDs, groups adapted by offering virtual bird walks and other online events welcoming neophytes to the fold. [Extracted from the article]