Whiting WMA 5/10--Black-and-white Warbler

After a full day of rain, I was happy to get back out to the WMA this morning. Warbler activity was just a bit more lively today--saw the most Pine Warblers I have all year. The new bird for the year is Black-and-white Warbler, which I found when I crossed over to the Crossley Preserve. I heard it first, a song I couldn't identify, a soft zzz-zzz-zzz-zzz, but luckily I found it circling a thick branch and now I'm able to put song and bird together.

Now that I know the song of the Prairie Warbler, I was able to list a couple of them, and of course, I still haven't seen a Common Yellowthroat yet, though I keep hearing them. Other happy sightings: a Great Blue Heron flying off a roost high in a tree at Crossley, and two Wild Turkeys (one of them the bird with a limp) crossing the trail as I was heading home.

Those of you with allergies: stay away from the Pine Barrens right now. The pine pollen coats everything with a yellow dust. I was wondering why the trails looked two toned until I realized they were yellow from pollen and the light gray sand only showed through on the footprints. Bodies of water have a yellow film on them. Cars are coated in yellow. I was scanning a field when the wind picked up and I saw a huge yellow cloud blow out of a stand of pitch pines. A couple of times this week I thought my eyesight was growing dim, only to find that I was looking through thousands of pollen grains that had settled on both my glasses and the lenses of the my binoculars. Happily, I have no allergies.

27 species for the walk:
Wild Turkey  2
Great Blue Heron  1    Flushed from bog @ Crossley Preserve
Turkey Vulture  2
Mourning Dove  8
Northern Flicker  1
Eastern Wood-Pewee  3    Heard
Eastern Kingbird  2    One on WMA lake, the other on Crossley Preserve
Blue Jay  1
Fish Crow  2
Tree Swallow  8
Barn Swallow  2
Carolina Chickadee  5
Tufted Titmouse  6
House Wren  1
American Robin  14
Gray Catbird  4
Black-and-white Warbler  1    Crossley Preserve
Common Yellowthroat  2    Heard
Pine Warbler  6    One female gathering nesting material on trail.
Prairie Warbler  2    Heard
Eastern Towhee  20
Chipping Sparrow  17
Song Sparrow  2
Northern Cardinal  1
Common Grackle  15
House Finch  5
American Goldfinch  1