With a few very late lingering warblers (Wilson's Warbler, Nashville Warbler as well as a group of Pine Warblers) hanging around through at least the beginning of the week and cooperative weather I decided to try my luck at a big warbler day for November. My goal was to try to get four species of warblers for the morning and I'm happy to say I succeeded.
I started off my morning at dawn at the UMASS campus pond in the hopes of turning up a Common Yellowthroat (I had at least two present at the location to begin the month). Despite my best effort I had no luck with finding one. The location where I had two early in November had two guys on a see saw talking constantly talking and making noise so finding a warbler there was a long shot (at least they were raising money for a good cause by see sawing for 24 hours).
My next stop was down to an area along the river in Hadley to get Yellow rumped Warbler (the most likely species by far for the day) and I turned up at least three and I'm sure with a little more effort, covering more territory, I could have added even more but I was trying to maximize species so once I got good looks and some photos of a few of them I headed out to the next stop.
I then headed a bit further south to Mount Holyoke College to try for the Wilson's Warbler. It was still quite cool, and the sun had not really hitting the area when I arrived. I thought I heard it call but I was never able to confirm at that point so I then spent more time wandering around the area and as I was standing there scanning through various species I saw a little yellow ball fly past me and land in a weedy patch and then pop up into a tree...the Wilson's Warbler! Very happy to still see the guy quite active and feeding actively. I got some great shots as he worked through the various trees.
Once I finished up at Mount Holyoke College I headed north up to the area of Great Pond with the main goal being relocating the Nashville Warbler that was first seen at the location on November 12th, with a secondary goal being a Palm Warbler (seen at the spot a couple days ago). I was quite happy to turn up the Nashville Warbler fairly quickly and got even better photos then on my previous visit there. The rest of the hour and a half of time at the location failed to produce a Palm Warbler but did turn up a few other noteworthy non warbler species.
As it was getting late at this point I headed back toward home with a stop off at Winsor Dam to look for some of the Pine Warblers that have been at the location. I arrived around 10:45 and started walking around in search of the warblers. They have been associating with a mixed flocks of Dark eyed Juncos and Eastern Bluebirds (and others) and once I eventually found some bluebirds, I found the warblers (it took me over an hour to finally find them!). I had at least a half a dozen individuals with a few brighter yellow birds as well as multiple dull ones. It will be interesting to see how long the group sticks around. I don't remember even having such a large group still around in the middle of November.
I ended the morning with four species of warbler (Yellow rumped Warbler, Wilson's Warbler, Nashville Warbler and Pine Warbler) with the sightings of the Wilson's Warbler and Nashville Warbler yet again setting new late dates for me for the species in the county. I'm sure there was at least some Palm Warblers and Common Yellowthroats around in the county somewhere but I failed to locate them this morning.
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