Swainson’s Thrush, Common Yellowthroat and Yellow-rumped Warblers

My house, Burlington, ON. May 18 2020.  I could easily have written off today as a washout, literally and metaphorically. It has been raining for nearly 24 hours as I write, and another 12 hours of steady rain is forecasted.  In the normal course of things, we take cover on days like this and expect little more than a lot of grass cutting in the days ahead. But it’s May, the much-delayed spring migration is in full swing and the birds have an urgent mission. So, on this soggy and overcast day there was a lot of bird activity. Friends called or wrote with stories of unexpected sightings including: Swainson’s Thrushes, a Golden-winged Warbler and an American Bittern, all good stuff.

At my front window I was looking at nothing in particular until a quick movement caught my attention, and there, now I had a Swainson’s Thrush too! It was hard to make out, it’s grey/brown back blended so perfectly with the leaf litter it was searching through.  Happy to have been treated to this little bit of urban wildlife I went to share the good news with my wife and noticed something flit quickly across my back yard and lo, a Common Yellowthroat to add to my wet-day collection!

Somewhere along the way, it had had a near-death experience I think, for it had no tail feathers, perhaps it had been ambushed by a cat or fox and barely escaped, leaving the predator with a mouthful of feathers. Here are a couple of long-shot photos of it, one where it is peering out of some early growth of Woodland Sunflowers (above), the other to show its disconsolate tailless condition. Not great photos, simply for-the-record, in case word gets out and people don’t believe me. 

There was more to come: two brightly dressed, male Yellow-rumped Warblers foraging in my floriferous old pear tree, looking almost like calendar photos – and might have been had I not had to photograph them through two panes of window glass. We celebrate Yellow-rumped Warblers as first to arrive among warblers but then they become a bit pedestrian, outshone by the likes of Black-throated Green, Blue-winged, and Blackburnian Warblers. But today they were stars in the gloom, all three are Birds of a rainy Day: Swainson’s Thrush, Common Yellowthroat and Yellow-rumped Warblers.