August 22, 2012. Lowville, ON. Changes in weather hinting at cooler days to come prompt our birds of summer to start heading south. Arctic-nesting shorebirds began showing up around here in July and now the passerines (perching birds or, less accurately, songbirds) too are on the move.
Today I accepted an invitation to join a young birder in exploring his home turf to look for migrant warblers. He’d seen 14 species a few days ago so he was optimistic and I was keen to learn more. As it happened there were many fewer migrants evident today. I explained to him that they seem to move in waves; you’ll get great days with lots of birds and then a lull until a change in the weather drops the next broad hint to get going.
I learned a useful lesson from him, to listen for vocal chickadees; where there’s chickadees there’s often other birds (warblers in this case). Over three hours we encountered 3 or 4 little microbursts of chickadees and warblers. Our tally included Canada Warblers, American Redstarts , a beautifully close-up view of an Ovenbird, Black and White Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler and a Wilson’s Warbler. Added to that were a few Red–eyed Vireos, an undetermined “Empidonax” flycatcher, Eastern Wood Peewee and, as my Bird of the Day, a close but briefly seen Great Crested Flycatcher. The warblers were all great birds, challenging and rewarding, but somehow it was the Great Crested Flycatcher that was part way through it’s post breeding molt but still quite colourful, that made me exclaim Wow! For my young companion his BotD was the Ovenbird for the same equally good reason, it made him say wow!
