Black-billed Cuckoo

May 29 2019.  Campbellville, Ontario. There’s a tract of woodland half an hour from home and worth a visit or two each spring. Paradoxically its attraction is the hydro-electric transmission corridor that cuts through it. It’s not the big steel towers or the million-volt static hum that make it so special.  Instead, the abrupt woodland margins attract Indigo Buntings, Eastern Towhees, Chestnut-sided Warblers and cuckoos, and the shrubby secondary growth beneath the lines is ideal for Eastern Kingbirds, Song and Field Sparrows, Yellow, Mourning, and Blue-winged Warblers.

I spent many enjoyable hours there last June but came away baffled by a mystery bird that moved unseen from point to point and sang tantalisingly invisible. I made an adequate recording of its song and eventually concluded that it was a Mourning Warbler. Today I returned with a companion hoping it had returned, armed as I was with a better idea of expected behaviour. With a bit of luck, I also hoped to see a Blue-winged Warbler.

Well, we saw both, in fact we saw everything noted in the first paragraph above. My companion is fairly new to the birding challenge and, for her, the visit delivered three lifers. I think she nearly choked (well, she gasped anyway) at the sight of the Mourning Warbler, it is such a study in elegance and drama. The Blue-winged Warbler was harder to follow, they are gaudier than the Mourning Warbler but can stop you in your tracks. Above and below is a photo of each taken a couple of years ago.

The real surprise and delight to me was seeing a Black-billed Cuckoo at close quarters. Close enough to be my Bird of the Day. We first spotted it tree-top and far away, it was elusive at first. But, perhaps it was feeling sorry for us, it flew to a maple nearby and then by progressive hops made its way down to our eye level and about twenty feet in front of us.  And there it sat quietly, like this.