Fallout!

 

    As many of you know, May is my favorite month. My friend Dave and I say, everything is good. Whether you fish for bass, trout, stripers, or carp, May is probably the best month. Also, May is the month for spring migration for songbirds. All the birds that "go south for the winter" come up here in the spring. Most go north of us to raise a family. Catching them on their spring journey is something all birders look forward to the rest of the year.

   Unfortunately, we have been waiting longer than normal because the weather has been awful. Most of the month has produced north winds. Winds from the north would be a headwind the birds would be flying into. So the birds wait for the wind to change. These birds still have to get to their nesting grounds because summer is short up north. So when the wind turns south, the birds have to go.

    Well, yesterday the wind was from the south. When we went to bed it was perfect for birds to fly north with a tailwind at their back. Then, it started to rain grounding the backlog of birds that had been waiting for days to head north.

I started the morning at Swan Point Cemetery. There were a ton of birds for about half an hour. I got three of my targets I thought I'd miss ( Blackburnian, Bay-Breasted, and Eastern Wood Peewee). After that half hour, I puttered around another 90 minutes with varying degrees of luck. I knew Miantonomi Park in Newport was hopping with a lot of birds because many of my friends went there. But, I figured like Swan Point it would die down and it wouldn't be worth my time to go there. Finally, at 9:15, I texted my friend Jan and asked if Mia was still birdy. Her response "OMG yes!"

So I drove down hoping to see some of the birds they had seen. Jan and others heard then saw a Tennessee Warbler which is a yearly visitor, but usually only one will show up, so if you want it, you better go after it. Tennessee would be a lifer for me, so if nothing else, I was hoping to see it or at least hear it.

I got to Mia at 10 am and the number of birds was almost indescribable. There were warblers dripping from almost every tree. Some trees would have five different species of "good birds". For example, one tree I was looking at had 2 Indigo Buntings, 2 Blackburnian Warblers, a Cape May, and a Scarlet Tanager.

Dead center of this very heavily cropped photo is the
Tennessee Warbler (lifebird)

There were multiple rare species. I ended up seeing, hearing, and getting a bad photo of the Tennessee. There was a Prothornotary Warbler, a couple Wilson's Warblers, Cape Mays, a Canada Warbler, and Summer Tanagers. I didn't see all of these species but they were all there. The most amazing thing was the number of Bay-Breasted Warblers. Bay-Breasted aren't as rare as Tennessee, but they are rare. They were dripping from the trees. I can't tell you how many individual Bay-Breasted I saw maybe 30-50. No matter the number, it had to be  quadruple what I had seen previously in my life combined.

There were hundreds of the more common species also. Yellow Warblers, Common Yellowthroats, Redstarts, and Yellow Rumped Warblers were there too. All told, there were twenty two species of warblers at Mia today!

 I didn't see all twenty two. I spent most of my time taking photos of the birds. The only species that I missed that I put in time looking for was Canada Warbler, but most people didn't see it. My friend Carlos, who is literally a world class birder and been doing this for years said this was the most birds he had seen in one place in Rhode Island. I am glad I got to experience it.

Tons of photos below. Hard to pick out just a couple

Three photos of Yellow Billed Cuckoo

 Female Cape May below

 Two photos of Indigo Bunting

                                                 Three Photos of Bay-Breasted Warbler

                                                        Blackburnian Warblers below

   All things being equal, Black-Throated Blue(below) is my favorite warbler

 Female Rose-Breasted Grosbeak