Spring 2021 Migration, Post #1: May 10 - 16

Migration was pretty slow for most of the week, but things started picking up towards the end of the week, with Saturday being probably the best day. But, even though migration still feels a bit slow, there were some great birds to be seen.

Wednesday, May 12
On Wednesday, Paul and I headed to Martin's Road in Ancaster where we knew we'd see Blue-winged Warblers and many Eastern Towhee, but we also went to see what else was around. Hooded Warblers are known to nest here, and we saw two and probably three last year singing up a storm. There was no evidence of the Hoodeds, but we did discover a second Blue-Winged Warbler singing. We also had a Broad-winged Hawk circling above. This could also be a resident.

One of the first things you notice when you walk into the woods at Martins Road is the extraordinary number of Eastern Towhees singing and calling. Sometimes, they come out to pose:

Eastern Towhee

This is also a good place for nesting American Redstarts:

American Redstart

Thursday, May 13
On Thursday, Paul and I went to check for a Cerulean Warbler that has been reported the day before at Joe Sam's in Waterdown. It would be a cool record to see two Ceruleans in one spring in the Hamilton Study Area. Joe Sam's is a nice spot, with Grindstone Creek gentle flowing through mature deciduous forest. Our plan was to walk up and down the creek edge until we either found the Cerulean or got too tired, whichever came first. It was on our second cycle that I heard a Cerulean sing! I looked up, and there it was, relatively low in a very small tree. We has some stunning looks at this bird, especially when the sun hit it. What an amazing blue they are!

Cerulean Warbler: My second this spring in the HSA

Friday, May 14
It felt like migration was really underway on Friday, when we went to one of our favourite spring birding spots in Grimsby. In addition to an army of Baltimore Orioles constantly competing for attention, we saw/heard 13 species of warbler, but also four species of thrush, three species of flycatcher, and a few other odds and ends. Th biggest surprise was seeing an Evening Grosbeak (f) at 50 Point Conservation Area. I didn't get a lot of photos of warblers, but the bigger migrants were showing well.

Wood Thrush

Great Crested Flycatcher: It's nice to hear them yelling in the forests again 

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Solitary Sandpiper

Rusty Blackbird: A bit of a surprise to see this bird

Saturday, May 15
The overnight radar from BirdCast looked pretty good for Saturday morning, so we decided to hit Paletta Mansion, which is a well-known migrant trap along the north shore of Lake Ontario. It was fairly good, although not exactly dripping with warblers. We had 12 species of warbler, including two Canada Warblers. Northern Parula were numerous. Someone thought they had a male Cerulean Warbler, so Paul and I felt compelled to look even though we hadn't heard it sing. The birder probably saw and heard a Northern Parula way up high in a Willow.

Northern Parula

Northern Parula: Kind of in-your-face

Black-throated Blue Warbler: Females are just as interesting as males.

But the bird of the day was definitely a Red-headed Woodpecker I found in the Hamilton Cemetery.

Red-headed Woodpecker

Sunday, May 16
Migration seemed to pause on Sunday. We didn't see a lot at Woodland Cemetery, although there was a beautiful Canada Warbler. Hopefully, tonight will bring a flood of new warblers into the area tomorrow morning. The SW winds overnight are promising!

Canada Warbler

Spring 2021 Migration, Post #1: May 01 - 09

May 1 - May 9 was a cool week for cool birds ... cool in both senses of the word. Migration is still slow, running mainly in trickles rather than flows, and there hasn't been a single fallout day yet. I'm looking forward to those coming over the next couple of weeks. Yet, as tepid as migration has been, there have been some very cool birds that have dropped by Hamilton for a visit during the first 9 days of May: Clay-coloured Sparrow, White-eyed Vireo, Yellow-throated Vireo, Cerulean Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, Prairie Warbler, Blue-winged Warbler, and Brewster's Warbler. I dipped on the Golden-winged Warblers. It's hard to complain about that, even if the number of the usual suspects is low.

So let's start with May 1st:
The bird of the moment was a Cerulean Warbler that showed up at Dundurn Castle on April 28th. I haven't see many Cerulean Warblers, and often I need to take a long drive to find one. Well, this one was in my neighbourhood! The views were relatively good given that some trees had only small buds on them. The dark cloudy days made photography less than ideal, but the sun came out on its last day, when it also spent time much lower in the trees.

Cerulean Warbler:

Cerulean Warbler: With some green still showing, I figure this must be a first-year bird.

Cerulean Warbler on a sunny day!

Cerulean Warbler

May 2nd and 3rd were fairly slow, but we did find our FOY Swainson's Thrush at LaSalle Park and, when I got home, I found a White-Crowned Sparrow in my back yard. Over the following days, the number of WCSP grew to four and they hung around for over a week (there are still at least two eating nyjer seed in my back yard as I type this.)

Swainson's Thrush at LaSalle Park in Burlington

One of four White-crowned Sparrows in my back yard all of May, so far.

Clay-Coloured Sparrow and Yellow-throated Warbler:

May 04 was a good day. It started with a nearly tame Clay-coloured Sparrow in the entrance gardens to Bayfront Park. I was birding with Alvan Buckley, who heard it first. Finding it amongst the House Sparrows was easy-peasy, as they say.

A fine looking Clay-coloured Sparrow!

Clay-coloured Sparrow at Bayfront Park

Later that day, Joanne Redwood went looking for the Clay-coloured Sparrow. She didn't find it, but what she did find certainly made up for it: a YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER!!! The bird stayed high in the trees, and sometimes disappeared for a while, so snaps were tough. Record shots are sometimes good enough!

Yellow-throated Warbler: A life bird for me!

As if the Cerulean and Yellow-throated warblers weren't enough, the very next day a White-eyed Vireo was found at 40 Mile Creek. Getting one White-eyed Vireo in a year is good. I don't have a lot of good snaps of them, so off I drove to have a look at this one. A group of us were looking for about an our before someone found it. It then took about another 45 minutes for it to come down low enough and close enough for nice photos. By this time, most people had left, so it was just me and the WEVI.

White-eyed Vireo at 40 Mile Creek on May 05

One of my favourite warblers to see every spring and summer is the Blue-winged Warbler. We're fortunate to have breeding BWWAs in the Hamilton area, and finding them is relatively easy. After dipping on a Golden-winged Warbler in Ancaster, my pals and I went to another location to see what was around, including Blue-winged Warblers. As soon as we arrived, we heard a Prairie Warbler sing twice. I got my bins on it long enough to ID it visually, but then it flew and we were unable to relocate it. While this was a bummer, we were soon distracted by a Blue-winged Warbler, which moved around the trees, occasionally singing and sometimes foraging down low. I immediately noticed that it had yellow rather than white wing bars, a trait of a BWWA I saw in the same place last year.

I managed to get some very close photos of this beautiful bird. Note the yellow and gold wing bars. Speculation is that this is a Brewster's backcross, meaning that a Blue-winged and a Brewster's mated and ended up with this. A Brewster's is a hybrid between a Blue-winged and a Golden-winged warbler.

Blue-winged Warbler showing yellow-gold wing bars.

Blue-winged Warbler. 

Blue-winged Warbler feeding.

This is a second BWWA in the same area. It was also singing a lot. Note its white wing bars.

So, as if things couldn't get better, the very next day, on May 09, I was birding at Woodland Cemetery, feeling a bit down because of a lack of new migrant birds. I was photographing a Black-and-White Warbler when I heard the song of a Golden-winged Warbler. Goodbye Black-and-White, hello Golden-winged!!!

I found the Golden-winged in some beautiful flowering trees and began to photograph it whenever it came out in the open, which wasn't often. It wasn't until I got home that I noticed this bird did not have a black throat or a very well defined black eye mask. It was BREWSTER'S WARBLER rather than a Golden-winged Warbler. 

Brewster's Warbler: Note the lack of a black throat and the weak eye mask.

A hungry Brewster's Warbler

Fresh caterpillar for the Brewster's Warbler

The Black-and-White Warbler I was photographing when I heard the buzzy song of a GWWA.

When I got home to have a look at the Brewster's snaps, I saw a report that there was a Yellow-throated Vireo just metres from my house ... so off I went. A great bird to end the first week of May migration mania!

Yellow-throated Vireo

That's it for the first 9 days of May. Hopefully  I will have lots to report over the next week so, and hopefully I'll have the energy to report it!!

Happy birding!