Bird blogs all over the US are lighting up with posts about spring migration. Everybody is seeing and writing about warblers and such - some waxing eloquent about birds like they are old friends that they've not seen for months, while others are excitedly sharing a new experience. It's times like these that make birding so exciting. Even if a bird is "old hat" for you, seeing them for the first time in the spring is exciting - and sharing the excitement of a new birder who has just added a "life bird" to their list is contagious. Here in New England, we had a nice sized wave of migrants trickling in last week, and what seemed like a big push over the weekend. It was difficult to try and pick a spot to go birding, because no matter where you were, and how good the birding was, there was always an additional bird someplace else. Pamela and I chose to hit some of our reliable haunts - Plum Island on Saturday and Mt. Auburn Cemetery with Paul & Diana on Sunday morning. During migration, it's really hard to miss with either of these places. One of the biggest 'birding' concerns this season when choosing a place to go, is that after a very wet spring with lots of variable temperatures (80's for a few days, then dropping to the 40's, then back to the 80's) the trees seem to have leafed out a few weeks earlier than usual, making it that much more difficult to spot birds at places like Mt Auburn. Would we let something like that stop us though? HA - I think not!
Both locations were pretty productive and we had our first real taste of migration this weekend. At Plum Island on Saturday, we had more Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Hermit Thrushes, and White-throated Sparrows than I have ever seen in one day before. (Hundreds of each!)
Meanwhile, reports of other warblers from around the state kept you moving to find more and more. Of course, migration doesn't mean just warblers - Seaside Sparrows, Kingbirds, Sora, Virginia Rail, and even Catbirds are exciting when things are picking up all around you. There's also spring movements of raptors, where could could see numbers of Kestrels, Merlin, Peregrine Falcons following the marshy coastline, as well as Sharp-shinned and Broad-winged Hawks. Oh yeah, and the Eastern Towhees were EVERYWHERE.
Sunday morning, while not picking much in the way of new species, was still a good morning at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Cloudy with intermittent sun kept things interesting without getting too hot, and then the phone calls started to roll in from birders at other places - the most enticing of which came from a few of our friends that were birding over at Wompatuck State Park in Hingham, where that morning there was a Yellow-throated Warbler (not very common for our area), Yellow-throated Vireos, and the Worm-eating Warblers had arrived (this is one the best places I think in the state to see Worm-eating Warblers.) So, along with a large group of friends, we worked our way down to Wompatuck S.P. not arriving until after noon - which didn't bode well - the sun was high and the day had become quite hot (kissing 90° on the thermometer) and bird activity had quieted down quite a bit. We were unable to find either the Yellow-throated Warbler or Yellow-throated Vireos, but did have spectacular looks at a singing Worm-eating Warbler and Ovenbird. Further along, the "bluest" Little Blue Heron was seen by several of our group - not including myself who seems to have actually been affected by the heat. (A new development for me since last year - I hope to get past it soon though).
It's Tuesday morning now as I write this, and I've had more short opportunities to get out, adding more species to my year list - birds like Field Sparrow and Prairie Warbler (seen and photographed as opposed to just being heard on Saturday) at their "regular" spot in Woburn, and Blue-winged Warblers are back at Mary Cummings Park in Burlington - so I expect there will be lots more photos to come soon!
I'll just wrap up this little post with an empahatic, Homer Simpson-esque "Woo-hoo!!!"
