Magee Marsh Boardwalk 5/15--Olive-sided Flycatcher, Mourning Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler--& Another Kirtland's Warbler!

Back to the Boardwalk. The weather was warm, the crowds were small and there were still bird to add to the trip list. The first new bird I added was along the edge of the woods near the boardwalk--high up in the trees I found a Blackpoll Warbler. According to Pete Bacinski, Blackpoll Warbler is the second most common warbler in North America (I think Yellow is first), but is not seen as often because it likes to pick for bugs in the crown of the forest.

The second new bird for the year was also another lifer for Shari--Mourning Warbler, a relatively elusive ground-dwelling warbler that I had once seen in Prospect Park. We had to brave a bird jam for that bird but Shari found it fairly quickly and I was lucky enough to get a decent glimpse of it.

Our third new bird of the day was a more difficult one--high up in a dead tree was a big flycatcher that someone had called as Olive-sided Flycatcher. I saw the silhouette and it flew away. Not enough to identify it. We waited around for about 5 minutes and the bird came back, still in silhouette. Then it showed its white rump patch and the i.d. was official.

At the east end of the boardwalk a small crowd was looking down on the ground. They had an American Woodcock almost out in the open. It was very tame; I thought it might be nest sitting, but someone said no, the nest was nearby not where the bird was. In any case, Shari got a good shot of it:

Look how perfectly the bird's coloring matches the leaf litter around it. If it settled into the ground, you'd never see it.

After 2 3/4 hours on the boardwalk, Shari wanted to sit. We got her sling chair out of the car and set her up at the head of the Estuary Trail which I had decided to walk while she rested. I took along the scope and saw a young Great Horned Owl once another birder kindly pointed it out in the tree for me, and hundreds of Dunlins feeding on a sandbar.  I walked along with the birder, out to the beach, when another birder stopped us and asked what we'd seen. What we'd seen was nothing he was interested in, but he did casually mention that the small group down the beach had another Kirtland's Warbler! We walked the 100 yards or so and quickly found the bird, again at the base of a tree, actively exploring the area. It appeared to be a young male. I saw it long enough to satisfy myself that I had another Kirtland's, then went off to find Shari. The bird wasn't that far from where I had left her.

When I got to the head of the trail, she wasn't there. She had moved to a shadier spot. She looked at me a little guiltily and told me she had seen a Kirtland's. She hadn't known what it was--having seen one only once and not expecting to ever see one again, she couldn't put a name to the bird until someone called out that they had it after it flew off from her spot, on the way to where I saw it. She did get a decent shot of it though:

Kirtland's Warbler

Magee Marsh Wildlife Area--Boardwalk
45 species
Canada Goose  4
Turkey Vulture  1
American Woodcock  1
Mourning Dove  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  1    Heard
Northern Flicker  1    Heard
Olive-sided Flycatcher  1
Eastern Wood-Pewee  1    Heard
Great Crested Flycatcher  1
Eastern Kingbird  1
Warbling Vireo  3
Red-eyed Vireo  2
Blue Jay  10
Tree Swallow  50
Red-breasted Nuthatch  1
Carolina Wren  1
Veery  3
American Robin  2
Gray Catbird  5
Cedar Waxwing  5
Ovenbird  1
Northern Waterthrush  1
Black-and-white Warbler  2
Mourning Warbler  1
Common Yellowthroat  2
American Redstart  25
Cape May Warbler  1
Northern Parula  1
Magnolia Warbler  2
Bay-breasted Warbler  2
Blackburnian Warbler  1
Yellow Warbler  5
Chestnut-sided Warbler  1
Blackpoll Warbler  1
Palm Warbler  1
Yellow-rumped Warbler  10
Black-throated Green Warbler  1
Song Sparrow  1    Heard
Lincoln's Sparrow  1
Scarlet Tanager  2
Northern Cardinal  2
Red-winged Blackbird  25
Common Grackle  5
Baltimore Oriole  4
American Goldfinch  1