Don't look ... oh wait, Look!

 We all know how challenging the north winds for most of the last 3 weeks have been, so when they relented the day before Birdathon we couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.  The day before Birdathon Floral was filled with birds ... but you had to figure out where to look.

First rule of birdathon (OK, it's not the first rule, but work with me here):  Don't look at Catbirds.

On scouting morning, second rule was: Don't look at white-throated sparrows

There were hordes of them, and time spent on them could be better spent on more likely candidates for rarities.  Of course that second night of south winds meant that the White-throats exited stage north and we had to work to find a single one on Birdathon day.  They'd flown! (kinda like the White-eyed Vireo that had been hanging out).

Of course one of the reasons not to look at WT Sparrows was that you needed to home in instead on other birds a person might need.  Like (this year), thrushes.  Up until Birdathon day I'd seen one (!!!) Swainson's Thrush this spring, and zero Gray-cheeks.  So it was a bit of a relief that Gray-cheeked was pretty easy on the big day.

Unlike the White-throats, White-crowns stuck around in decent numbers.

Unlike the warblers which has mostly bailed.  We had to work to find even many of the common ones.

The one bird we didn't have to work for?  Least Bittern.  It's a bird that can't be expected, or really even planned for.  So we were pretty happy when a Least jumped into the scope view as we looked at a Coot at the dump pond.  And we were flabbergasted when we found a second one later in the day (with more bonus moorhens to boot!)

The theme of the day might have been trading birds.  We didn't find a Prairie Warbler ... but a Summer Tanager was pitty-tucking where the Prairie was supposed to be.

Tiscornia gave its frequent contribution of a 3 bird bump.  One of them is almost always RB Merg.  There weren't any mergs ... but both black-backed gulls were present.  I doubt we've ever had both black-backs on Birdathon.

At any rate, it was a very enjoyable day.  While we didn't break any records, I'd had the best sleep the day before that I've had pre-Birdathon in years for which I was very grateful, and no doubt contributed the much more relaxed feel.

Solitary Birdathon

Last week in lieu of the Covid cancelled Team Birdathon many of us did individual big days on the day Birdathon would have been held, a Solitary Birdathon.  It felt really weird to see 2 of the 3 people who would have been on the team all take up separate positions at daybreak fifty yards apart.  Big days always dawn with a ton of promise (well the ones that aren't already hamstrung by wind and rain), but I really missed sharing that excitement.  I didn't stay long at the beach.

Ironically a Solitary Sandpiper, the day's emblem, was in the first 20 or so birds of the day; I'm not sure the sun was quite up when this was taken.

With many of the southern warblers not really singing in the bare canopy at the time I didn't have to worry about being the last to hear Yellow-throated Warbler as I seem to usually be; there wasn't one to be heard at all!  I did manage to see a silent one, but Cerulean eluded me (as did a bunch of canopy birds like Acadian Flycatcher).  There were birds about though, I don't usually take a ton of pics on big days, but anything in a flowering red bud is fair game.

This was a really good spring for Gray-cheeked Thrush, to the point that I started photographing them just to prove to myself that I was ID-ing them correctly.

I pressed pretty hard in the morning.  There were a lot of downsides to lacking teammates, I was on my own to find and keep track of everything, but I tried to capitalize on what small advantages I could find.  Windows were rolled down a lot more than usual since I didn't have to worry about creating a wind tunnel for others.  I literally ran in and out of Pine and Worm-eating territories to score those birds while it was still cool and still hit Floral by 9am.

I didn't find a ton of birds at Floral, though White-eyed Vireo was still singing away.

I left after one loop and went up and birded Grand Mere and environs, finding more early warblers before returning to the hawkwatch dune.  It was a SE wind and I did manage Broad-winged, as well as my only hummingbird of the day.  A Summer Tanager pitty-tucked and then teed up for a distant phone-scope.

The afternoon of Birdathon can be a bit of a slog as a person circles back around the county.  The camera turned into a scope for a Lesser Scaup at Brown, a more appropriate use of the camera on a big day.

It was certainly a more relaxed day (I also had the most sleep before Birdathon that I've had in a few years with Covid cancelling the Friday work thing I've had to travel to the day before the last 3 years).  Without teammates there was no stress over getting on a bird others had found, or getting them on a bird in turn.  There was no worry about being the last to hear all the high-pitched songs.  And the competition were all my friends, so the urge to not lose was a lot less than usual. 

I ended with 142 birds, but I bet with a team that would have been high 150's.

Birdathon 2019

The pressure was off this year with Tim back.  Some pre-dawn rain led us to ad-lib the night schedule, but a singing Black-billed Cuckoo argued that despite the mileage there were some decent birds out there.  I had hoped that the rain would knock down migrants and Kesling and Lakeside were as active as I've seen them all spring with Golden-winged, Cape May, and Bay-breasted among others.  The rest of the morning stops were less active however and we worked hard at Floral to pick up some of the missing species but not find much in the way of surprises.  An Acadian Flycatcher at Floral was probably the best (of not many) pics from the morning.

Reports of a possible Pacific Loon threw our route off again.  We found only a pair of first spring Commons (though from a big day standpoint Common is as good as Pac Loon).  We made our 3rd loop through the south county.  Shorebirds have been hard this year, but we had SB Dowitchers in 3 locations through the day.

Did you notice the Least in front and left of the lead dowitcher?  Gotta find them all on a Big Day!

The evening saw us grinding after remaining possibilities as a front blew through.  Check out the wind-blown scapulars on this Sanderling.

We ended with 151 birds (it would have been 152 if we could have counted a whip-poor-will that was singing at 1130 before the rain started).  One of the misses?  Moorhen.  We looked hard for it along the Paw Paw river Saturday without success; today it was visible in my first sweep of the bins...

Nemeses

Another year, another Birdathon.  I struggled with not enough sleep, but we had a good day overall.  Some birds a person has luck with, others a person doesn't.  I've had no luck with Kentucky this spring.  A lot of people have had it or them or (cough, cough, yellowthroats, just kidding) along Floral.  One was seen again yesterday a couple minutes before we came to the boardwalk.  We stood there for nearly 30 minutes; we didn't get it.  Least Bittern is always a hard bird.  Both my teammates heard it call once.  I didn't. (Fortunately it was when we went back this morning).  But a nemesis in the positive was this Whip-poor-will.  I'd honestly never seen one before, and despite having a couple (usually) reliable spots, they weren't singing in the nighttime rain.

Worm-eating Warbler can also be a hard bird.  Birdathon was a pretty late date this year allowing us to pin this one down to a territory a few days prior.

almost a mirror image Prothon from Brown

On the other end of the color scale, a female redstart at Tiscornia

  
We had Yellow-bellied Flycatcher a few places, this one was also at Tiscornia

Coupled with an Olive-sided, we did well on flycatchers (and had 28 warblers in addition).

Birdathon 2016

Rhoda, Andre, and newcomer Chace Scholten and I did the annual Birdathon yesterday.  The night started out quickly with 4 nightbirds in the first 4 spots.  We then had a bigtime lull adding maybe 2 birds of consequence in the 4 hours that followed. 

Daybreak (fortunately dry after a scary looking front passed just to the south in Indiana) found us on the beach where we flushed my first nighthawk of the year off the beach.  A flock of Black-bellied Plovers and SB Dowitchers landed briefly.

It was still pretty dark as evidenced by the very high ISO (and brightened too) photo.

As we left New Buffalo a coal train was crossing the road out of town.  It seemed to be slowing down and eventually the very last car came to stop completely blocking the road.  Arrrrgh.  We turned around and I wasn't very happy about missing a couple spots that can sometimes hold useful birds.  The detour wasn't all bad though; a pair of Brown Thrashers crossed the road.  We stopped to try to make them unanimous and Andre noticed a different mimic singing behind us...

It was the only mockingbird we had all day.

Floral and some of the surrounding trails turned out to be very active.  By the end of the day we'd tallied 31 species of warbler.  A person could get some pretty serious WarblerNeck after a day like this.  Sometimes I cheated on the high backlit birds.  Here's probably the view a person has through bins...

Not sure what it is?  Not sure where even the bird is?  Just take a pic and ZOOM it in ...

and Voila, female Blackpoll Warbler.  New for the day.

There were other birds around too.  I took the required Scarlet Tanager pic given that they usually dominate the end-of-the day compilation tales.

The bird that figured most prominently in the story-telling however, was Black-billed Cuckoo.

Clearly they were moving through.  We saw 2 and heard a third over the course of the day.

Along those lines was Olive-sided Flycatcher.  Here's the first one we saw.

The second one was right next to it.

The third one was in the dune hawkwatching.  There's been a couple years in Berrien I haven't found Olive-sided.

Similar was Yellow-bellied.  Andre thought he heard one earlier in the morning, but it gave the keep-back call that I just don't hear often enough to reliably separate from Least's che-bek.  Another one made it easier by popping up fairly close

Then we saw another one and started worrying that we were mis-calling Acadians somehow in the fog of Big Day lack of sleep.  It made life easier by calling (the more recognizable chu-wee, even better)

We kept seeing them as we walked Floral (and then on another trail too).

I've seen 3 of these birds at Floral before (and usually later in the month), but 5 was pretty funny.

After we left Warren Dunes the day became the somewhat less enjoyable appointment style birding.  Need a Solitary Sandpiper?  Head for the nastiest skankiest pool of pseudo-mud you can find.

Semi-palmated Plover was one of over a dozen yearbirds for me.

We did remarkably well on hawks given that none were flying from the dune overlook.  At one point we were going to turn right when Rhoda and I noticed a raptor flying away to the left.  We turned left too and after a mile tail chase caught up with a young Bald Eagle.  It felt like it was going 35mph with the presumed tail wind. 
This young Broad-winged popped up in Warren Dunes.  Having seen a bunch of young ones in Costa Rica this last winter this bird was less confusing than it would have been 5 years ago for me.

Three Oaks had the most uncommon bird that our (and most) teams encountered.

 It was there at the afternoon check, our morning check netted 2 ducks I'd never had on Birdathon before, Ring-necked and Canvasback.

Ironically there was a drake Canvasback at Brown in the afternoon too.

Here's the final new bird of the day ...

 a Vesper Sparrow in the field across from Love Creek where Tim had found one for the last bird of the day several years ago.

All told, we ended with 155 species (we forgot to check off RB Merganser on the tallysheet we turned in so the reported total was 154), a couple behind our average, but an enjoyable day nevertheless.

Pluses and minuses

I've always enjoyed doing big days and I've started a lot of them over the years.  I've finished ... well, less.  I would guess I've quit on over half of them once the afternoon lull is due and a person can look at their checklist and project fairly well what number they'll hit.  Honestly, I would have quit yesterday.

Going to a bunch of different places is one of the pluses of a big day and it paid off at night.  The cold night made it a good one to hear Great Horned Owls.  This one was hooting in the moonlight at one of our chat stops.

Certainly no big day is more based on listening than in May.  There are some that are easy to hear, distinctive and common.

Others are distinctive but uncommon,

This Mourning Warbler was singing away at the Lakeside bridge, the most exposed I've ever seen one.  Any other day I would have spent a lot more time with it.

The other trick is filtering.  Birds like Redstarts and Magnolia Warbler can fill the soundscape...

 ... making it harder to pick out subtler species like Wilson's Warbler

With the exception of the Mourning Warbler, though, initially it was pretty easy to keep moving.  That started changing in Warren Woods, where the cold weather led to some of the canopy birds being a lot lower, probably looking for insect activity. 

Scarlet Waterthrush was a new species for me.

Normally I would have spent a lot more time here.

An Acadian Flycatcher was also uncharacteristically low, definitely my best pic of one.

Barred Owl followed its usual birdathon path in the morning, it took us a while to hear one, then we heard one at about 3 consecutive stops.  It was unusual to see one well though.  Rhoda spotted this bird in the canopy, again my personal best pic of a species.

You have to keep moving (the downside during the day) and keep moving we did.  By late morning we were in Warren Dunes, I was pretty exhausted by mis-timing my sleep the day before, and when we walked away from the Worm-eating with a Scarlet Tanager about 6 feet away that was ju-ust about to pop out into the clear I mentally checked out.  My mind was going at the speed of this Map Turtle.

 
We kept pressing through the afternoon, collecting various common species and ending with 159 birds despite the cold day.