I began my work day at sunrise conducting some point counts at The Nature Conservancy's Wading River Marsh Preserve on Sound Avenue in Wading River. Aside from the nice array of marsh inhabitants the woodland portion of the preserve was quite active with the highlights being 2 WILSON'S WARBLERS & 1 PURPLE FINCH. A Northern Waterthrush was also singing from the swamp area, a species I usually do well with here during Spring and Fall migration. The Purple Finch was gnawing on some freshly developed Red Maple seeds just above the swamp at the preserve entrance.
Line Road, Calverton: >From there, I was headed to take care of some work at Calverton Ponds >Preserve. I was halted on Line Rd. by the sweet songs of migrant warblers. I >pulled off to the west side of the road near a small trail entrance where an >overwhelming amount of warblers worked the oak canopy moving from south to >north. I noted 15 species of warblers in just over 30 minutes of stationary >viewing. I viewed these birds in 2 separate "bursts" until activity ceased to >barely a trickle. What impressed me most, rather than diversity, was the >overall numbers of warblers. There were Magnolia Warblers every which way I >looked. At one point I had a Blackburnian, Nashville and an Indigo Bunting all >in the same scope view. The Indigo continued north with the roving pack of >birds. Highlights and numbers (at least what I could keep up with) include: Cape May Warbler - 1 Blackburnian Warbler - 1 Canada Warbler - 1 Nashville Warbler - 1 Northern Parula - 13 Magnolia Warbler - 16 Blackpoll Warbler - 11 Black-throated Green Warbler - 8 Yellow-rumped Warbler - 12 Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 1 To put things into context, that's 64 individual warblers in just over minutes of viewing time. This was a circumstance in which several sets of eyes would have really come in handy. I could barely keep up with the activity and birds were certainly missed. The action was going strong when I arrived and I wonder what several early morning hours of viewing might have yielded. When I arrived at Calverton Ponds Preserve, just .75 linear miles from this immense warbler pocket, there were virtually zero migrants but a stray Black-throated Green. For those interested, I've included my Flickr link that provides a couple of iPhone digiscope photos of the Wading River birds. http://www.flickr.com/photos/39025168@N07/ Best, Derek Rogers Sayville -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
