Last September, rangers and other employees at Glacier Bay National Park headquarters looked out their office windows at Bartlett Cove and spotted a very unusual warbler…a stranger to Glacier Bay, to Alaska, and even to the West Coast. It was a yellow-throated warbler (Setophaga dominica), a species whose usual range runs through the southeastern US and down to Cuba. This was the first Alaska sighting.

The bird stayed around for several days, plucking insects off the park buildings and delighting locals and birders from afar.

I was commissioned by a friend to create this illustration as a commemoration of that intrepid little explorer. Wonder if he’ll be back next summer?