O Canada Warbler

Canada Warbler Cardellina canadensis

Mourning Warbler Geothlypis philadelphia

female Black-throated Blue Warbler Setophaga caerulescens

Black Swallowtail Papilio polyxenes

  While I am fully aware that noon is not the best time to go birding, I also have this ghoul-like compulsion to sleep more than five hours, a couple of times a week. So I slept in most decadently yesterday morning, then plodded up through the land of surly landscapers (Upper Westmount) to the Summit. It seemed quiet there at first, but after a full circuit, things picked up in a hurry. Warblers showed up in the form of Chestnut-sided, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, and Black-and-white Warblers, but the star attraction was a confiding and impossibly gorgeous male Canada Warbler. I watched at length as it deftly fed at eye level, in the company of a female Black-throated Blue Warbler. Truly a spectacular bird. Also at the Summit: two Great Crested Flycatchers, a female Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and a Black Swallowtail butterfly. I also spotted an Empid flycatcher that I'm working feverishly on IDing. I'm leaning towards Willow or Alder Flycatcher. Stay tuned.
  Once again, I found more warbler activity at an odd site near the Summit. A few large trees and surrounding scrub were teeming with warblers – an Ovenbird, three Chestnut-sided, a Magnolia, two Black-throated Blue, a Black-throated Green, two Yellow-rumped, and a cracking Mourning Warbler, my first of the year.