Warbler Fallout!

Black-and-white Warbler

 This was quite the morning. I ate my breakfast on the back steps and enjoyed the morning bird song chorus. So far this spring, I've only had palm warblers and yellow-rumps, so imagine my surprise when I heard northern parulas and black-and-white warblers singing up a storm in the backyard and neighborhood (The black-and-white picture is here from Newton). All of last spring I only had 3 warbler species total for the yard, so finding 2 in one morning was quite a treat. Both of these were also firsts for the yard. I continued to hear parulas and black-and-whites all the way into Newton Center. Its hard to imagine how many warblers this must have been.

American Redstart

Then I very briefly stopped at Riverway, off of the T in Boston, and was immediately assaulted by warbler song. Black-throated green and black-and-white warblers popped up first and I just enjoyed them as I left my camera at home. But as I started finding more and more warblers, yellows and common yellowthroats, I started wanting to take pictures so I pulled out my phone to line them up through my binoculars (at least you can tell which warbler is which). I kept hearing songs that sounded like parulas and black-throated blues (I love the color of the BT-Blue) so i thought I was just confused until I realized

Black-throated Blue Warbler

that they were both present. As I kept scanning the trees I also turned up a veery, an American redstart and an ovenbird! I regularly hear ovenbirds in the spring, but this was only my second time seeing one. The trees were full of our little gems of wood warblers and there were even some yellow-rumps chasing each other around to round out the morning with 9 warbler species! There were a few warbler-like songs that I didn't hear well or recognize, so maybe there were a few more that I missed, but it was still one of my best warbler days so far. That doesn't even include the joy of seeing the veery and finding a singing Baltimore oriole. Of course there were many more of the usual suspects too.

Veery

Then I later read a Massbird email from Marshall Iliff indicating that there was a major coastal fallout of migrants today, making it probably one of the best birding days of the spring. I hope some of these will stick around for the weekend!