Whitesbog 8/14--Canada Warbler

Another morning at Whitesbog. I walked a figure 8 pattern around the 3 drained bogs, finding the usual assortment of shorebirds and waders. The Buff-breasted Sandpiper wasn't to be found. No unusual shorebirds were feeding in the bogs. But there's always the potential for something rare and that's a good part of the appeal, along with the quiet and emptiness.

Instead of doing another loop, I stowed the scope in the car and walked around Union Pond, hoping for what a regular there calls "tweety birds." I also detoured over to Ditch Meadow and managed to scare (literally) up one Wood Duck, a first for the month. Along the path that runs between Union Pond and Ditch Meadow there is a low, wet spot where I often see Common Yellowthroats, so I stopped there a pished. First a couple of catbirds came out, then a goldfinch, then a warbler that wasn't a yellowthroat. It was grayer on the back than a yellowthroat would be and had an eye ring like a whitewall tire. My first impression was Nashville Warbler, but that would be rare and it really didn't have a hooded appearance. Great. I'm struggling with shorebird identification this month and now I have to start working on the dreaded "confusing fall warblers."

There aren't that many grayish warblers with prominent eye rings, I just couldn't recall them. Phone apps are fine but flipping through Sibley's is a lot easier, so when I got home I did just that. Way at the end of the warbler taxonomy I found my bird--Canada Warbler. Appearance, habitat, time of year, all fit. It was probably a first year bird that arrived at Whitesbog on last night's favorable winds. I saw it a couple of time right below my feet, but it scrambled back into the undergrowth and the only other birds that responded to my pishing were yellowthroats.

One other bird of interest to me was more from a photographic angle than a birding one. I don't usually get very excited about eagles but when I first got on the bogs, I saw a nice adult roosting in one of the trees jutting out from Union Pond. Since it was just sitting there all teed up, I thought, Why not take a picture?  It was too far away for my camera to get a decent shot, so I digiscoped it.

50% of the time my digiscopes (hand held) don't come out at all and 49% of the time the picture I get is just good enough for documentation.

But 1% of the time the light is right, the hand is steady, and the bird is big enough to get a good picture. I even like the asymmetrical framing that inadvertently occurred when the lens found the eyepiece.

For my morning on the bogs and around other bodies of water I had 38 species:
Canada Goose 2 Union Pond. One apparently injured
Wood Duck 1 Ditch Meadow
Pied-billed Grebe 2 Union Pond
Great Blue Heron 6
Great Egret 10
Green Heron 3
Glossy Ibis 1 Middle Bog
Turkey Vulture 1
Bald Eagle 1
Semipalmated Plover 10
Least Sandpiper 25
Pectoral Sandpiper 3
Spotted Sandpiper 3
Solitary Sandpiper 3
Greater Yellowlegs 5
Lesser Yellowlegs 12
Gull-billed Tern 6 Middle Bog
Mourning Dove 2
Eastern Wood-Pewee 4 Heard
Eastern Phoebe 1 Union Pond
Eastern Kingbird 2
American Crow 1 Heard
Purple Martin 1
Tree Swallow 100
Barn Swallow 1
Carolina Chickadee 1 Heard
White-breasted Nuthatch 1 Heard
Carolina Wren 1 Heard
Gray Catbird 10
Cedar Waxwing 1
Common Yellowthroat 4
Pine Warbler 1
Prairie Warbler 1
Canada Warbler 1
Song Sparrow 2
Eastern Towhee 4
Red-winged Blackbird 5
American Goldfinch 1