The month of May this year broke my highest ever total for warbler in the Hampshire County with a total of 31 species plus a variety of hybrids (more on those in a future post). Looking at the last several years I have either reached 29 or 30 for a total by the end of the month in the county so getting to 31 is a big achievement. It was a good migration season, especially with the early and mid arriving warblers but the late season migrants were low in number with Mourning Warblers having their worst showing for me in a long time. In addition Blackpoll Warblers and Cape May Warblers also seemed to be down in numbers from previous years. Hopefully this is due to good migration conditions that just kept the birds moving north instead of stopping here. Fall migration as well as well as next spring will show if this was the case or if the numbers have truly dropped. Highlights were many over the course of the month with a few rare or unusual warblers making an appearance with Prothonotary Warbler at the top of the list for sure followed up by a Hooded Warbler and multiple Orange crowned Warblers. I managed this despite not being able to hike up some of my favored spots due to a back issue that plagued me for the month. This certainly kept my count of both Worm eating Warblers and Cerulean Warblers down compared to other years. Thankfully Cerulean Warblers once again returned to Quabbin and have stuck around (again more on that in another future post). The only real miss was failing to catch up with a very rare Kentucky Warbler that visited a private yard in Chesterfield late in the month. It was seen and heard just one day and has not been relocated so not really a miss as I had no real chance to try for it but it sure would have been nice to see this species again in the county (I have had the species just twice before in the county with one along the rail trail in Amherst in early June 2009 and one in the yard in early May of 2010).
I made a few forays out of the county to follow up on some unusual to rare warblers (and hybrids) including a visit to Franklin County to see a Lawrence's Warbler and Hampden County for a Hooded Warbler. I also made a few stops in Hardwick to try to relocate a Brewster's Warbler that was singing a Golden winged Warbler song but I never saw that bird.
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