August has always been one of my favorite birding months, not only for warbler but observing the day to day changes in bird numbers. I always know it's fall when many of the local summer breeders seemingly disappear. This past month has been my best August for warbler numbers over the past 10 years. While some warbler species did arrive slightly earlier than normal(though not outrageously so), the relatively high number of migrants arriving by the 17th-20th was more surprising to me. Besides warbler, the most common migrant were Least Flycatcher and Red-eyed Vireo. Other migrant flycatcher are always hit and miss for me during the fall(usually more miss). This past month was little better than I have come to expect of August for Olive-sided and Alder Flycatcher. While I saw 2 Yellow-bellied Flycatchers this past month, I have low expectations for that species in both the spring and fall here. I usually go into a season hoping to see 1 and any more are a bonus. I saw 1 Philadelphia Vireo on August 29 at the arboretum and saw single Swainson's Thrush on the 27th and 29th both at the arboretum. For the month I saw 133 species with duck and shorebird species lacking(no surprise). The best single day single location species day was August 30 at Rapids Lake MVNWR with 71 species(72 if including an unidentified tern). The best single day species total at the arboretum was 55 on August 29. Below are warbler stats for the month.
Warbler species seen per day August 6- 5 August 7- 4 August 10- 6 August 11- 9 August 12- 6 August 14- 7 August 15- 4 August 16- 8 August 17- 9 August 18- 14 August 19- 14 August 20- 13 August 21- 13 August 22- 13 August 23- 10 August 24- 11 August 25- 14 August 26- 15 August 27- 12 August 28- 8 August 29- 15 August 30- 16 August 31- 11 Cumulative warbler totals for the month American Redstart 194 Common Yellowthroat 192 Chestnut-sided Warbler 122 (has surpassed my previous high spring/fall cumulative season total) Tennessee Warbler 106 Nashville Warbler 80 Black-and-white Warbler 54 Northern Waterthrush 39 Golden-winged Warbler 36 (has surpassed my previous high spring/fall cumulative season total) Yellow Warbler 36 Canada Warbler 35 Magnolia Warbler 33 Blackburnian Warbler 23 Wilson's Warbler 20 Ovenbird 19 Mourning Warbler 12 Blue-winged Warbler 5 Bay-breasted Warbler 3 Northern Parula 2 Brewster's Warbler 1 Prothonotary Warbler 1 Cape May Warbler 1 Pine Warbler 1 Black-throated Green Warbler 1 John Cyrus ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
