The first three days of May has seen a decent influx of warblers and I have tried to get out as much as I can. My back injury has certainly curtailed my typical activity this time of year as I have mainly stayed on level paths with little off the beaten path travel. Nonetheless I have found some good stuff with 23 species so far for the month. I had a banner day on the first with a total of 18 species plus my first Blue winged x Golden winged Warbler hybrid. I had to drop some work paperwork off in Northampton and headed there before dawn after walking up at 3AM and then finally getting out of bed around 4:15. I went for a few walks to loosen my back up and the best stops being the rail trail in Amherst and Quabbin Park.
After what looked on the radar like a large arrival of birds overnight from the first into the second I had some thoughts of possibly making the walk up the mountain at Skinner SP but my back was not feeling it and the cool, breezy weather made it an easier decision to save it for another day. I instead walked a number of trails in the area and turned up a total of 19 species of warblers (including my first Blackburnian Warbler for the county for the year) as well as two hybrid Blue winged x Golden winged Warbler hybrids (one in Ware and the one in Amherst I had found the previous day). Despite a very cool start the day eventually got sunny and the temps neared 80 degrees.
Friday started off cloudy but not quite as cool as the previous day. I really wanted to spend the day walking along the ridge line of the Holyoke range but I had to be content to keep my walking to paved paths (and even that was taxing with any elevation gain). Nashville Warblers seemed to be the warbler of the day at multiple locations. Overall I had 22 species of warbler (my highest day total for the year so far). The house was active with warblers again with a dozen species, with two getting captured at the water feature.
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