Orange crowned Warbler among ten warbler species today

Orange crowned Warbler, UMASS, Amherst, MA, Apr 29, 2019

Orange crowned Warbler, UMASS, Amherst, MA, Apr 29, 2019

Orange crowned Warbler, UMASS, Amherst, MA, Apr 29, 2019

Today provided a rare respite from the recent rainy, cool weather and I took advantage of it by hitting a number of spots this morning. Although it was sunny to start it was also cold with a low of 30 degrees when I arrived at my first stop for the day at UMASS. It was rather quiet and I was on my way back to my car when I heard an odd chip note that sounded interesting. I tracked down the call and found an Orange crowned Warbler! Orange crowned Warblers can be tough to track down in western Massachusetts and are more likely to be found in the late fall than in the spring (I typically find more Connecticut Warblers than Orange crowned Warblers every year!). In fact I have only had Orange crowned Warbler in the spring on four other occasions: May 5, 2012, May 14, 2016, May 4, 2017 and May 16, 2018.  Two of the four other spring records were also at UMASS with the other two records being at Quabbin Gate 5 and Skinner SP.  The sighting today is my first April record ever in the county.  Besides the Orange crowned Warbler I had just two other warbler species there with a single each of Northern Waterthrush and Black and White Warbler.

Black and White Warbler, Quabbin Park, MA, Apr 29, 2019

American Redstart, Quabbin Park, MA, Apr 29, 2019

After getting a number of photos and some recordings of the chip notes (the bird never sang) I decided to head over to the nearby rail trail in Amherst. The rail trail turned up my first Northern Parula for the year in Hampshire County plus some Yellow rumped Warblers and another Black and White Warblers. As I was having some fairly good luck with diversity so far I decided to head back east and spend some time at Quabbin Park in search of more species. I found seven species of warblers there overall with the new ones for the day being Louisiana Waterthrush, American Redstart, Palm Warbler and Black throated Green Warbler. I hoped to find a few more new ones with a couple additional stops but no luck getting past the ten species I had already caught up with. I was certainly happy to get a double digit count in late April (especially with the migration conditions being poor the last few days).