So the Tropical Birding guides treading the boards at Magee Marsh decided to run a personal competition between ourselves - The World Series of Warblers (i.e.who could rack up the most warbler species in a day?) So Cameron Cox, Scott Watson and myself pursued all we could with the shame of loss a constant threat, as well as the incredibly predictable punishment of a round of beers looming too...
The day started well for me, with a male Cape May Warbler singing sweetly in the car park; however as we were all together at that point, no advantage was played! In the morning I also walked into the lingering Worm-eating Warbler again with remarkable ease, and caught up with many Bay-breasted Warblers, seemingly one of the more numerous species decorating the Magee boardwalk on this day. Similarly, Hooded Warbler, ordinarily one of the trickier warblers, from a set of scarce southern species, also proved easy, and I nailed killer looks at a hooded male early on. However, the Cerulean seen by others, including Scott, one of my co-competitors, proved elusive all day long, and cost me dearly. Picked up one my first Wilson's Warbler of the season, along the "new" Crane Creek Estuary Trail on Ottawa NWR, a trail has proved productive since it opened for its first spring last year (i.e. Kirtland's ALL day), and is proving so again for this season. It took me an age to find an Ovenbird and Blackburnian, and even a Halloween bird-American Redstart-and I added a late found Pine Warbler, although it was all too little, too late. Cameron Cox walked away as top dog with a remarkable 27 species, equalling my best ever day total at the site, while Scott sat just behind him on 26, and I came in with a shameful 24 species! What did I miss you ask (that was seen that day)? Answer: Northern Parula, Cerulean, Prothonotary and Blue-winged. The game is due to be played again soon with Andres and Keith also joining the game to spice things up. All-in-all though this was widely touted as quiet day at Magee, with low warbler numbers, but high diversity of species with at least 28 species recorded on the day. Not bad for a "poor" day!
On top of that the local Tree Swallows were in fill song and in full colour as the spring sun lit up their metallic blue coats...
More from Magee very soon...
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