Significant southbound migration is already occurring on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota- flocks of Red-winged Blackbirds, Cedar Waxwings, Great Blue Herons, Bank Swallows, Purple Finches, Evening Grosbeaks, etc. have been moving down the shore for over a week.
Today, while birding Minnesota Point and Wisconsin Point in Duluth-Superior, a surprising number of warblers were seen for this early date, with 214 individuals of 15 species observed, most of which were presumably migrants, often occurring in swarms of 5-12 or more birds in just a few trees. Although a few warblers move south in late July every year, especially Nashvilles and Tennessees, this magnitude of migration is many weeks ahead of schedule. The more common species appeared to be represented by a mix of both juveniles and heavily molting adults, with many fun plumages observed. Golden-winged Warbler: 12 Tennessee Warbler: 14 Nashville Warbler: 54 Northern Parula: 7 Yellow Warbler: 28 Chestnut-sided Warbler: 1 Cape May Warbler: 4 Yellow-rumped Warbler: 17 Palm Warbler: 2 Black-and-white Warbler: 24 American Redstart: 35 Ovenbird: 5 Mourning Warbler: 3 Common Yellowthroat: 7 Canada Warbler: 1 other birds of note: Red-breasted Nuthatch: 10 Rose-breasted Grosbeak: 11 Baltimore Oriole: 22 Scarlet Tanager: 4 Bonaparte's Gull: 3 at Wisconsin Point, presumably early migrants Northern Harrier: juvenile over Minnesota Point, no doubt a migrant Yellow-throated Vireo: one on Minnesota Point near the Superior Entry, rare in Northeastern MN ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
