It's spring warbler season, when our southern Appalachian woods echo with the glorious racket of dozens of species of neotropical migrants who come north to breed.

If you make only one birding trip this spring, let it be a trip up (or down) the mountain route that local birders know as "Warbler Road."

Don't wait. Many species will have finished breeding within a few weeks and will have clammed up prior to heading south again.

On a good day you can easily notch 20 different warbler species along Warbler Road, and some have seen 25 on a single trip. If you're a serious birder, allow plenty of time, because the woods are so full of birds that a single pull-off can easily occupy you for an hour.

To go from the bottom to the top, take Virginia Route 614 from near its juncture with Interstate 81 north of Buchanan. Go east for about three miles through Arcadia until you come to Forest Service Road 59.

Take a left onto 59 to Forest Service Road 768, where you'll take a left. From here proceed to Forest Service Road 812, where you take a right and stay on the road until it hits the Blue Ridge Parkway at the Sunset Field Overlook, near mile 78.4.

If you don't want to drive that far north, other mountain roads offer birding that's nearly as good. One of my new favorites is the mostly gravel path that goes down the other side of the Blue Ridge through Cannaday Gap and down to Endicott, crossing the Blue Ridge Parkway around mile 155.2.

The road is much improved since I last tried it years ago and passes through rich warbler terrain. On a recent weekend I saw or heard rose-breasted grosbeaks, ceruleans, black-throated greens, black-throated blues, hoodeds, ovenbirds, wood thrushes, Louisiana waterthrushes and many others.

Though improved, it's still not exactly an interstate, and pull-off spots are limited. But I recommend pulling over at a safe spot, getting out of the car with binoculars and just watching and listening quietly. I believe I can guarantee you'll be glad you tried it.

Mozart RIP?

For three springs in Slings Gap, we enjoyed the off-brand songs of a towhee we called Mozart.

Mozart had somehow learned the "wrong songs," which made it difficult to attract a mate. The first spring I think he found a girl, but he was luckless these last two years. He wasn't there at the usual time this season and I assumed my frustrated bird friend had died.

However, this past weekend we heard a towhee do one of the six anomalous songs that Mozart used to sing. Bird song expert Donald Kroodsma says that some species learn their song not from their fathers but from other nearby males.

So was it Mozart? Or another hapless young towhee who had the bad luck to learn Mozart's "wrong songs" and who will consequently suffer the same sad romantic fate? I'll try to find out and report later.