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| Cerulean Warbler, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Aug 27, 2019 |
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| Cerulean Warbler, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Aug 27, 2019 |
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| Common Yellowthroat, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Aug 26, 2019 |
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| Chestnut sided Warbler, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Aug 26, 2019 |
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| Blue winged Warbler, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Aug 26, 2019 |
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| Yellow Warbler, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Aug 26, 2019 |
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| Northern Waterthrush, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Aug 26, 2019 |
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| Common Yellowthroat, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Aug 26, 2019 |
The last couple days have certainly felt and looked like early fall with mornings starting out cool (upper 40’s) but warming into the 70’s during the day with low humidity and mostly sunny skies and mixed groups of warblers around. I stopped at
Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River on my home yesterday and ran across a few warblers including a slightly early Northern Parula among nine species. On my way out I ran across Ted who told me about the warblers he had including a Tennessee Warbler, Wilson’s Warbler and a very unusual Worm eating Warbler. I tried briefly to relocate those species but didn’t have any luck.
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| Cerulean Warbler, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Aug 27, 2019 |
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| Cerulean Warbler, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Aug 27, 2019 |
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| Yellow Warbler, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Aug 27, 2019 |
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| American Redstart, UMASS, Amherst, MA, Aug 27, 2019 |
Today I started out my morning at
UMASS but it was fairly slow with just five species of warbler. I decided to try my luck once again at
Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River in the hopes of catching up with some of the species I missed yesterday. Unfortunately the fog had descended on most areas away from UMASS including my destination. Nonetheless there were a few birds around and slowly the fog lifted and that is when I had the best bird of the day when I found a Cerulean Warbler...a very rare fall migrant and only the second one I have ever had in fall. I was watching a small mixed flock when I found the bird near a Yellow Warbler. It took me a minute to process what I was seeing as I was not even remotely expecting to find a Cerulean Warbler today. I watched it for several seconds before it moved and then popped more into the open allowing me to fire off a series of photos that thankfully captured the bird. It looked to be a female or a first year male. Cerulean Warbler typically migrates fairly early and there are just a handful of breeding pairs in the area and very few north of here so finding one at the end of August is quite noteworthy. Besides the Cerulean Warbler I had a half dozen other species of warbler. Between yesterday and today I had 13 species of warblers with 11 species just at Fort River. When adding the species Ted had Fort River yesterday there were at least 16 species of warblers in a fairly small area.
