another good morning

When you get four days in a row of high activity during migration season, the question comes up: are these new birds that just came in last night or did they arrive on Friday or over the weekend and are taking a pause in their journeys to rest and bulk up? Unless you actually see them coming in at first light (which happens sometimes), the question is difficult to answer. There are, to be sure, resident birds; these are the ones that hang around all year long and they were singing and calling this morning as though spring had finally arrived (it certainly felt like it). On the other hand, the changing composition from day to day of the birds that make up the morning rush suggests that new ones have been arriving. Admittedly, there is always the possibility that migrants may use a larger area as a waystop and the changes may merely reflect local movements in the area. Without actually banding or otherwise marking the birds, it's impossible to be completely sure.

In any case, there were a lot of birds, dominated once again by 'rumps & pumps' -- many Yellow-rumped Warblers and smaller numbers of tail-pumping Palm Warblers (including a couple of Yellow Palm Warblers in the mix). Two birds that appeared in noticeably larger numbers were Blue-headed Vireos and White-throated Sparrows; until this morning the White-throats were unaccountably scarce (now we can expect them to be with us all winter).

Among the more unusual birds were another trifecta of warblers. One was the not-uncommon Blackpoll Warbler in its fall Pine-Warbler-like guise (wingbars, yellow wash on the breast, streaked on the back). The second is the Common-Yellowthroat-like fall MOURNING WARBLER with its plump, short-tailed look, grayish-olive head with complete (or almost complete) eye-ring, light lemony yellow wash all the way underneath; although the head was not distinctly grayish there was some contrast between the head coloration and the back which the Yellowthroat lacks). I've seen this plumage a number of times now and am more and more convinced that it is an immature Mourning Warbler.

The third warbler is still more challenging. This was a Vermivora warbler with an olive-gray back, an indistinct eyeliner and a rather even dull yellowish cast underneath. I don't believe this was a Tennessee Warbler which, as I observed the other day, has a much more greenish back, less yellow in the vent, a stronger eye line and a shorter tail. So I'm calling this one an ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER. The bird was feeding fairly high in the trees but I don't think that rules out this species in any way; Orange-crowned Warblers, in spite of their reputation for frequenting low, open areas, can often feed higher up. This is not a bird I see here very often but I have two good records from almost the same date in mid-October, 2009. In my opinion, both Mourning and Orange-crowned Warblers are more common than is generally realized; they are just very easy to overlook or misidentify.

Other warblers seen were the usuals: American Redstart and Common Yellowthroat. There was a Baltimore Oriole flyover and a few Brown-headed Cowbirds mixed in with the very numerous (and very vocal) Red-winged Blackbirds. Plus a number of Eastern Phoebes, a few Cedar Waxwings as well as both nuthatches. I actually saw a White-breasted Nuthatch nuthatching -- that is, hacking at a nut (actually an acorn wedged in a crack in the bark of a Pitch Pine). Several birds were seen feeding on the seeds of the ultra-common Marsh Elder (Iva frutescens): Yellow-rumped Warbler, Palm Warbler, Swamp Sparrow and American Goldfinch. These are all birds that like the marsh environment and get through the winter here by feeding on these abundant seeds.

Marsh Elder's counterpart at the edges of the marsh is Groundsel-Tree (Baccharis halimifolia) which is just now developing its wind-blown seed bundles (each seed is attached to a light feathery white bristle that allows the seed to be dispersed by the wind; it is these striking white bundles that make such a spectacular display at this time of the year. There are also a lot of butterflies and dragonflies on the move, the former mostly Monarchs, Red Admirals and Mourning Cloaks, the latter including the big Green Darners, at least two kinds of Saddlebags (red and black) and one or more species of the late-season red Meadowhawks -- neat medium-sized libellulidae (the fancy name for dragonflies) that are next to impossible to pin down as to species.

Eric Salzman