More rain, dreary and chilly weather, and, truth be told, a self-imposed magazine deadline kept me confined to quarters. However, after I'd actually finished the latest article, the weather rewarded my good behavior with a bit of drying out towards the later part of the afternoon. I grabbed the camera, the backpack, a small collection of plastic bags, and my optimism, then raced to the Bell Cedar Swamp Preserve up the road. The footing was very wet and my boots were soon soaked. The mosquitoes were, well, exuberant, to say nothing of suddenly abundant. There were, alas, no odonates, and precious few bees and butterflies. But in the thickets running down the center of the old field, I noticed a bird that seemed to be on a mission. I remained very nearly motionless as I tried to coax the critter into revealing its identity, and I guess I was successful, because in short order, I was face to face with a male Yellowthroat, that feisty warbler with the black mask and the often non-stop "witchety... witchety... witchety... witch!" calls. Unfortunately, I hadn't packed the Sigma supertelephoto, so I could only hope that the 55-200mm zoom was up to the task. When I got home, I happily discovered that the lens had not only captured the Yellowthroat, but it had done a fine job of capturing what the warbler had been after: a nice fat spider. Bon appetit!