The day held lots of promise with the best night of migration in quite some time with south winds that were fairly strong and covered a large portion of the eastern US. I was guiding for a visiting birder from India again today and we kept our plans fluid so we could follow up on any rare bird reports that came in during the morning. I got a little birding in before meeting up for the morning of guiding and I could tell there had indeed been a good influx of species. Our first stop was along the rail trail in Amherst and the forecasted strong winds were still light and the amount of bird song was high with multiple warblers even from the parking lot. Not long after starting our walk I got a text letting me know of a Hooded Warbler in Hadley. I decided to stick with covering the rail trail to see what else we could find before possibly heading south to try for the Hooded Warbler. As we walked along the rail trail we turned up more and more warblers with a few showing quite well. The best warbler for me on the walk was a Canada Warbler that sang from a deep tangle and as typical for the species, did not show at all. Nonetheless it added another species for me for my big warbler year in the US and became species #42. I will certainly catch up with more as the migration season continues on. After about an hour and half along the rail trail and 14 species of warblers we headed south to try for the Hooded Warbler at Mitch's Way. We made it through the traffic fairly easily and arrived just before eight and started walking in to the spot for the warbler. Along the way we had lots of birds singing and calling including multiple species of warblers. We made it to the spot and found Joe, Steve and Leslie on site and within a few minutes we heard the Hooded Warbler singing its classic song. Sometimes it sounded close and other times a distance away and it would go quiet for a time and then be heard again. We tried to get looks at it but it never showed for us. The Hooded Warbler became warbler species #43 for me in the US this year. There were lots of other warblers around and the variety of song reminded me again why I love this area in spring (not so much in the colder months!). We walked a bit further and ran across Ted (the finder of the Hooded Warbler) before returning to the Hooded Warbler spot. The Hooded Warbler was still present and singing a non classic song and it yet again defied our efforts to get looks at it. I had to settle on getting a few recordings before we headed out for the morning. Mitch's Way produced an impressive 19 species of warbler for us and the morning ended with 20 species of warblers overall. Sadly I didn't get pictures of either new warbler species for the year but I will hopefully get more chances in the near future.
The water feature also produced a new warbler species for the day with a capture of a Northern Parula. A Yellow rumped Warbler 'myrtle' also showed back up today. This makes three warbler species so far at the water feature...a bit behind the total of ten warbler I have had in the yard for the year.
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