May 28 2016. Rail Trail at Copetown ON. I went out this morning with a birding friend who wanted to show me his newly discovered birding destination, the empty rail bed of a former railway that linked industrial Hamilton with points west. Like many once important but now abandoned lines, it has been made into a hiking and biking trail.
The charm and sometimes scourge of railway lines is the back-yard views along the way, Bob’s old rail line was marked by views into remnant ponds and bogs, farmland and someone’s garden. Railway lines may hold unexpected virtues, routes crossing the Great Plains and Prairies are almost the sole refuge of a host of native plants, which for the most part (99.99% most part) were plowed and tilled out of existence over a century of settlement.
The margins of the trail were hopping with birds: some colourful like Indigo Buntings, Yellow Warblers, and American Redstarts; and others heard but not seen, a Black-billed Cuckoo in particular. We stopped for a while at an interpretive lookout where I made a surprisingly successful vocal attempt at flushing out birds because up popped a male Mourning Warbler followed shortly by his mate. They hung around for quite a while to see what the fuss was about, it was a rare treat for us.
Mourning Warblers are aptly named, at least the male is. Contrasting his yellow breast and belly, his head, neck and throat are draped in a somber veil of grey that gathers to shape a black cravat; very handsome. Birders tend to celebrate all warblers for their beauty whether subtle or outrageous and the Mourning Warbler sometimes gets more than its share. I wish I had a photo of one worth sharing but I see them too infrequently, I’ve never had the opportunity
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The Black-billed Cuckoo was a rather frustrating pleasure (heard but not seen) but amply made up for by the tantalizing surprise Mourning Warbler, my Bird of the Day.