May 24, 2011

                This was literally the best day of birding I may have had, ever.  I got to see four species of birds I had never seen before. I don’t think that’s happened since I was probably 6 months old and things such as ‘grackles’ were new to me.  What’s great is that two of the birds are rarely seen.  One of which gets seen maybe 1 day ever couple of years.  I was torn about whether or not to go to Mount Auburn today, as I had much to do.  I decided to take a brief trip there, and it was sunny as I left.   As I wended my way through the cemetery and just before I got to the dell I drove up on a wild Turkey strutting about in the road. I pulled over and got many pictures; I was quite surprised to see a Turkey milling about, I had heard there weren’t any in Mt. Auburn, but apparently there’s at least one. I hope it has company.  I stood around watching it for several minutes, it did not seem particularly perturbed by my presence which is nice.   It eventually wandered off up an embankment and I wandered off back to my car.  

  I carried on another minute and arriving high side of the dell where I’ve had so much luck I parked my car, and engaged in one of my favorite activities; taking pictures of Robins on people’s gravestones.  The one above this paragraph turned out particularly well.  This Robin was shocked at how handsome I am so it’s beak was hanging open. 

After shocking nature with my supreme aesthetics for a while I started down the path by the Irish poet’s grave marker.   On my right I noticed an experienced birder who actually showed me how to identify the Black-Throated Greens that I have seen en masse lately.  He told me that he and another birder there had just seen a Mourning Warbler, a Magnolia Warbler, and a Canada Warbler in the bush a few minutes prior.  The Mourning Warbler is exceedingly rare; spotted perhaps once every couple of years by a couple of birders and then it vanishes again.  I saw something moving around in the bush and snapped about 30 pictures of it, but it was against the back drop of the sky with the sun still quite bright, so they didn’t come out well.  The picture at the right is the best of that first batch of pictures I got of it.  You can tell it’s a Mourning Warbler at least.  All I could see was a grayish-blue head, yellowish below the neck, and a tiny black bib.  I also saw what I thought was a really washed out looking Wood Thrush, like if someone ran a thrush through a washing machine about 30 times it would look like this.  I went around to the high side of the spruce bush and the other people there confirmed that was the Mourning Warbler.   My first ever sighting of one, and what may actually be my last!  I asked if they saw a thrush in there too, and they said there was a Swainson’s Thrush in the area as well, I described what I saw and they confirmed that was actually the Swainson’s.  Another first time sighting!  Several minutes passed with no further sound or sighting of either bird so we hooked back around the spruce bush into the dell along the path.  While there we spotted a Scarlet Tanager across the dell, as well as a Black & White Warbler. I’m starting to notice the B&W’s creep around like nuthatches quite a bit.  

The sordid underside of the Tennessee Warbler

   After several minutes of observing (the fairly experienced birder there had a pair of Svwaroski 10x42 EL’s….note to self: Win lottery and buy a pair) the guy with the nice binoculars said he heard the Tennesee again, this time outside of the dell, across the street sort of diagonally in this huge tree.  We went over, and after a few minutes I spotted the bird, pointed him out, and got about 10 pictures.   By now it was overcast, so they didn’t come out great, the one at right was the best of the bunch.   The Tennesee Warbler is a rather muted colored Warbler, looking almost like a Vireo in some ways.  The song was a dead giveaway to the guy in our party though, and I was able to match up what I saw with my binoculars to the Peterson guide, it was definitely a Tennesee.   Suddenly overhead we heard a Canada Warbler flying over, and it landed in a tree a short distance away.  I spotted it with my binoculars but was not able to get any good pictures.  That marked the 4^th first time species I had seen today.   In addition to the rarity of the Mourning, the Tennesee is fairly rare, seen maybe a few times per year, and the Swainson’s and Canada are both fairly uncommon in the area as well.  

                Returning to the dell after the Canada had flown off in the same bush we heard the Mourning Warbler.  After skulking about for a bit (me, not the Warbler) I was able to get into the underbrush and get several decent pictures, and get some great looks at it with my binoculars.  It’s a very simple bird; blue-gray head, yellowish everywhere else, and a black bib.   The pictures aren’t my best work, as now the sky was overcast and the underbrush dimmed much of the light, but you can tell it’s a Mourning Warbler.  We must have been an odd sight to the birds in the area.  There were five of us skulking around the outside of the shrubbery.   

          We also noticed that at the base of the bush scuttling around in the underbrush was the Swainson’s.  I got a couple of pictures, but again the lighting conditions were awful so they’re fairly blurry, but you can see one at the bottom here if you ever wondered what a Swainson’s thrush would look like to someone with really bad vision.  It began to sing intermittently as it moved slowly up the embankment.   It’s song is quite haunting, like the ghost of a Wood Thrush singing.  We lost the Mourning a bit later, and the Swainson’s moved back up the hill.   I left after that, with the Swainson’s serenading me with its ghostly song.  What a great day of birding!