September 11 2018 Hendrie Valley, RBG, Burlington, ON. Yesterday was truly dismal; we were rained on all day as the remnants of a tropical hurricane dragged across the north-east. Today dawned well-washed and overcast. I had no predictions as to what a day of rain might mean for birds.
There were transects to be done and I met up with two companions to well, count birds. It took a while for things to get going, perhaps the day needed to warm up, but in time we were finding new species at almost every turn. It started with a Chestnut-sided Warbler, then Magnolia Warblers, a Ruby–throated Hummingbird, American Redstarts, a breathtaking Black–throated Green Warbler, a puzzling-at-first Orange–crowned Warbler and finally (for this little corner) a Black and White Warbler. But we couldn’t stop there, we had to keep moving, there was much more ground to cover.
There were many highlights to follow: Northern Flickers and Swainson’s Thrushes feasting on the fruits of Virginia Creepers, Warbling, Red–eyed and Philadelphia Vireos, Great–crested and Least Flycatchers; Any one of these could have been my Bird of the Day. It was all about as good as it gets, and then up popped a Wilson’s Warbler, just long enough to make us gasp.
It’s not that Wilson’s Warblers are particularly rare, but we sure don’t see many, they pay us brief visits on their way to and from Ontario’s far north and their Mexico wintering home. The Orange-crowned Warblers are probably less common, certainly easy to overlook. But what Wilson’s have that Orange-crowned don’t is visual impact; a shallow measure I’ll admit but it stopped us dead in out tracks. The Wilson’s Warbler was My Bird of the Day despite some very serious competition.
We had tallied fifty species for the day when I realized that we had been on the trail for over three hours and I was just three minutes and an alarming eight-kilometers way from an eleven-o-clock meeting. Gotta run.