Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Migration's end

It's now back to nearly a full year's wait for next year's spring (fortunately fall migration can be even more exciting here).

Here's a Wilson's in the pre-dawn at Tiscornia from a few mornings ago. I had to brighten it considerably and shoot at a max ISO given that the sun wasn't even up yet.

Here's a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, also at Tiscornia yesterday. I'll have more notes on the ID in a later post once I get together some other empid montage pics.
It was nice to get a last woodland migration bird for the year list, I should be able to get Olive-sided in the fall. Connecticut will be a lot harder though and I don't know how much effort I'll put in for it. Bay-breasted (!) should be easy. I'm at 244 for the year, the highest I've ended May with. There's at least a dozen more birds that I would really expect to find. It'll be the dozen and a half or so after that which will be harder...

Here's a Franklin's, also from yesterday. It's a 2nd calendar year/1st summer bird that will likely not be a breeder. Whether it's a migrant or a bird that will mill around Lake Michigan all summer who can say.
This one has a longer bill and a more prominent white tips to the primaries than the other two May Franklin's I've seen. Unlike the bird from 2 weeks ago, this bird has competed its primary molt. It does display the hallmark white between the black of the primaries and the gray of the upperwing though.