Golden-winged Warblers-Yes!

I got out of the car with fingers crossed.  I had brought my house guests to see Golden-winged Warblers.  They had never seen them and the birds are declining.  Looking for Hooded Warblers weeks ago, I happened to have heard the Golden-winged at this spot.   So I knew they were around, but any time you go birding, especially during nesting season when the birds are quiet, it is a crap shoot.

After dousing ourselves with bug spray, we headed down the path to where I knew there were Hooded Warblers doing family duty.   Stopping to listen, we ticked off what we were hearing:  Hooded Warbler, Ovenbird, Warbling Vireo, Eastern Pewee, American Redstart…. From the corner of my eye I saw movement.  When I swung up my binoculars, I saw a beautiful Blue-winged Warbler, then a female Redstart dashed across my field of view.  As I followed her, there he was, a Gold-winged Warbler with his classic black triangle throat patch. I shouted to my friends.  “Hey, Goldens!”

Since there are both Blue-wings and Golden-wings nesting in the same spot, I left them ogling while I trotted back to the car to grab the Petersen to refresh on what the hybrids look like.  We saw no hybrids today.  But we did see a lot of Golden-wingeds.

The birding was amazing today. I need to get over there more often.

Our grand total: 32 species.  Great Blue Heron, a large family of Wood Ducks, a small family of Canada Geese, Broad-winged Hawk, Turkey Vulture, Mourning Dove, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Kingbird, Eastern Wood-pewee, Great-crested Flycatcher, Tree Swallows, Black-capped Chickadee, White-breasted Nuthatch, American Robin, Indigo Bunting, Veery, Catbird, Crow, Red-eyed Vireo, Warbling Vireo, American Redstart, Blue-winged Warbler, Golden-winged Warbler, Ovenbird, Hooded Warbler, Baltimore Oriole, Red-winged Blackbird, Phoebe, Yellow Warbler, Northern Cardinal, Eastern Towhee, Brown-headed Cowbird.

Wordless Wednesday

Birding a powercut

I parked the car and stepped out to the hiss and singing of the high-tension wires overhead in the powercut. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Until I moved north, I had never considered birding a powercut. Heck, I don’t think I even knew there were birds near the wires. It is a little scary. But the birding is glorious. Many birds like the second growth of the large swath kept cleared by the power company.

Ignore the raised hair on your arms. Pay no attention to the wires. Stop. Listen. There. Do you hear it? The chickbur of a scarlet tanager. C’mon, let’s go. On the way up the hill there was the sweetness of yellow warblers, the bee buzz of the blue-winged warblers and the throaty monotony of the yellow-billed cuckoo. The chestnut-sided warblers all around were so pleased to meetcha.  My head swiveled searching the cacophony of sound for movement. I saw indigo bunting, chestnut-sided warblers, prairie warblers, and the increasingly rare golden-winged warbler. Many of these birds are a crap-shoot to find during migration but are a sure thing in a powercut. Wait. There is a flash of scarlet dashing from one side of the cut to the other. Ahhhhh.

Go down a back road road, to a dirt road to another dirt road, somewhere you will find a powercut. My favorite powercut is off Paradise Road but the one on Van Orden is also good.

Some of the best birding is in unlikely places.

Birding Clinton Road

Hard on the heels of my disappointed over missing the World Series of Birding because of my delayed flight back from New Orleans; a friend and I spent some time yesterday on Clinton Road. Clinton Road is a 10-mile wooded wonderland that goes from Route 23 to 94. It snakes through the Newark watershed, has sparkling streams that fall over iron-laced boulders, is a cool delight in summer and breathtaking in autumn. It is also the nesting territory for many of the wood warblers. (should I mention that it is haunted?)

My friend arrived at my house proclaiming that it was a very birdy day. From the house I could hear Orioles, Titmice, Chipping Sparrows and the “Weeeep” of a Great Crested Flycatcher. We threw our gear in the car and headed out.

We rolled down the windows and cranked up the heat (yes, it is still cold up here) listening as we crept down the road. At one end of Clinton Road there is the lake. At this hour the Red-winged Blackbirds were frantically shoves their epaulets in our faces, the Yellow Warblers were chasing each other like sprayed drops of feathered sunshine.

When we got past the houses and into the wooded section, the woods erupted in the melodious songs of the warblers. I smiled and thought to myself, “welcome back”. The Black-throated Greens were murmuring in the trees, Ovenbirds teaching from the forest floor, Prairies ascending the heights, Parulas and Redstarts singing for all they were worth. We were awash in Chestnut-sided Warblers. It was amazing to hear it all. In the end we got 52 species in 4 hours.

Black-throated Blue, Prairie Warbler, Black-throated Green, Ovenbird, Wood Thrush, Veery, Yellow Warbler, Blue-Winged Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Parula, Redstart, Pine Warbler, Black & White Warbler, Hooded Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Indigo Bunting, Red-winged Blackbird, Common Grackle, Baltimore Oriole, Goldfinch, Scarlet Tanager, Purple Martin, Barn Swallow, Tree Swallow, Mute Swan, Canada Goose, Mallard, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Turkey, Turkey Vulture, Black Vulture, Broad-winged hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Cooper Hawk, Mourning Dove, Cardinal, Robin, Blue Jay, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Pileated Woodpecker, Phoebe, Great-crested Flycatcher, Red-eyed vireo, Crow, Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, Catbird, Chipping Sparrow, House Sparrow, Cowbird.

Are you intrigued? Come to the highlands.