The Biggest Week in American Birding (Kelley's Island, Ohio): 10th May

Continuing The Biggest Week in American Birding today a pre-dawn start saw us at a dock in Marblehead ready for a boat trip and foray on to this Lake Erie Island. The idea behind the day was to try and find any migrants island hopping across the lake on their way north to breed with a visit to Kelley's Island. Our first walk struggled to find a migrant at all, although a short walk along Titus Road in the late morning perked things up a bit with a singing male Blackburnian, crisp male Cape May, and a lone Chestnut-sided Warbler. Also along there were a Blue-headed Vireo and a Veery sifting through the leaf litter.

Late afternoon on the Magee Marsh boardwalk brought Bay-breasted Warbler, and the female Golden-winged Warbler that has taken up residence and has now been on site for at least 4 days. The real showstoppers for me though were the friendly warblers along the spur into the reedbed where this Chestnut-sided begged me to photograph him, and this male Mrytle then tried to outperform him with his close-up antics.