NDG Quiet Spot, October 10

Yellow-rumped Warbler Setophaga coronata

Black-throated Green Warbler Setophaga virens

White-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophrys

White-throated Sparrow Zonotrichia albicollis

Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia

Scarlet Tanager Piranga olivacea

Ruby-crowned Kinglet Regulus calendula

-(The morning before the Brown Booby incident…)

-A 2-hour go-around just after dawn turned up 32 species, on a crisp and sunny morning that saw frost on the ground in the darkest of terrain folds.

-Finally found my first White-crowned Sparrow for this patch. This was personal species #88 for the site…shocked I haven’t found a Lincoln’s Sparrow there yet!

-A Scarlet Tanager had me scratching my head at first, when all I saw was olive yellow with flakes of red mixed in around the back end. Then I saw the dark wing. It must have been a male in the middle of its moult. Been a while since I’ve seen one in that plumage phase. The bird was feeding on wild grapes.

-Four Swainson’s Thrush lurked in a small woods.

-An Eastern Phoebe still.

-I heard what sounded like a triple White Wagtail call at one point at the edge of a field, but that makes no sense, so I’m wondering if it was some kind of odd Junco call. There were loads of Juncos, Chipping Sparrows, and White-throated Sparrows on the edges, as is tradition for this time of year.

-A Winter Wren protesting from below the tangles.

-Small numbers of Yellow-rumped, Black-throated Green, and Tennessee Warblers out in the sunny bits. One Tennessee looked suspiciously like an Orange-crowned Warbler, but better views were needed.

-Two Blue-headed Vireos.

-A Merlin knifed through at the end and took a Junco.