 |
Yellow-rumped Warbler Setophaga coronata
(with apparent Xanthochromism) |
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Yellow-rumped Warbler Setophaga coronata
(with apparent Xanthochromism) |
 |
The bird doesn't raise eyebrows when
the yellow is removed from the equation... |
 |
| American Redstart Setophaga ruticilla |
 |
| Chestnut-sided Warbler Setophaga pensylvanica |
 |
| Yellow Warbler Setophaga petechia |
 |
| Wilson’s Warbler Cardellina pusilla |
 |
| Common Yellowthroat Geothlypis trichas |
 |
| Warbling Vireo Vireo gilvus |
 |
| Scarlet Tanager Piranga olivacea |
 |
| Great Crested Flycatcher Myiarchus crinitus |
 |
| Eastern Kingbird Tyrannus tyrannus |
 |
| Baltimore Oriole Icterus galbula |
 |
| Bobolink Dolichonyx oryzivorous |
 |
| Brown-headed Cowbird Molothrus ater |
 |
Osprey Pandion haliaetus
(with full crop) |
 |
| Black-crowned Night Heron Nycticorax nycticorax |
 |
| Common Tern Sterna hirundo |
 |
| Blue-winged Teal Anas discors |
 |
| Northern Green Frog Rama clamitans |
 |
| Muskrat Ondatra zibethicus |
Reserve Faunique Marguerite-D’Youville, Île Sainte-Bernard, Châteauguay, May 18, 2021
Another fun stab at a hundred species for D’ville, with 83 species encountered in 11 hours of birding. We logged ten warbler species on the day, but it didn’t feel like it. Numbers were thin, and there were no noticeable warbler waves. It felt odd, given the time of year, that we didn’t run into any Black-throated Green, Black-throated Blue, or Magnolia Warblers, among others. Besides warblers, the day’s list was also light on deep water ducks, raptors, and sparrows, which didn’t do us any favours.
We probably won’t try for 100 there again this spring, but it is a number that is definitely in sight. It could be done if we showed up before dawn and had a bit more luck with timing…but right now, it seems like the Venn diagram circles of arriving/departing/breeding birds are already pulling apart. It was entertaining to try for it.
The day was hot, with barely a puff of wind all day — a massive contrast to the wintry weather of just a week earlier. Stay hydrated!
One of the last birds of the day was an odd bird indeed. A warbler was spotted in a small tree on the southern tip of the island, at about 7:30pm. It initially had me super confused. I briefly thought it was something nutty like a Townsend’s Warbler. Nah. Then I got better looks at the yellow throat and overall Yellow-rumped Warbler vibe, and ambitiously pegged it for an Audubon’s Warbler, the western counterpart to our white-throated Myrtle Warbler, the eastern subspecies of Yellow-rumped Warbler. When I got home and was able to review some more images in field guides and online, the long Myrtle-like supercilium and yellow speckling on the chest had me thinking it was a Myrtle x Audubon’s hybrid, with maybe even some Magnolia Warbler influence, if such a thing is possible. After kicking the images around on bird ID groups, a new possibility emerged — a straight-up Myrtle Warbler, but with Xanthochromism, an unusual excess of yellow pigmentation. This seems to match up best with the overall markings of this bird, which are pretty standard for Myrtle Warbler, yellow notwithstanding.
All in all, it was a fun bird to puzzle over in the field. I was all sore and cranky by that point in the day (hour #10 of birding), but after seeing it, all of that went away. My knees were new again. I was uber amped. Gotta love birding.
Oh yeah, right at the end, an insect flew into my open gob and got stuck, wriggling, in my throat. It was hilarious.
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