Miscellany (please send some warblers my way, IL and WI guys)

A few odds and ends considering all of the migrant action appears to have been west of Lake MI today. First this is what is happening currently:

Spent 30 minutes outside and had dozens of Swainies and a couple Gray-cheekeds, plus a probable HETH, and a couple of sparrows.

Today featured what has now become the only background warbler in the yard other than a single TEWA:

and morning flight featured no warblers but this EABL:

and one I ID'ed only after working the photo- a SCTA. Pretty cool...

and I thought my BWHA # was epic...

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S11620802

A kilo of BWHA

Dudes...I was on the phone with the RAZL this evening and this prompted me to step outside and try my luck while on the phone.  I'm sure glad I did!  I looked up and had a huge kettle of BWHA directly above me, I started counting and quickly had to ratchet my count up from 5 to 10 as I couldn't keep up with the volume of birds.  I then looked east and west and had multiple other large kettles following different flight lines with just rivers of BWHA way up streaming overhead.  The birds kept streaming over for another 25 minutes before slowing to a trickle around 6PM.  Here's my checklists from this afternoon at my place.  The first represents 30 minutes spent outside when I got home since I figured it was a good day to watch for raptors...http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S11620949

The second represents my count conducted only 30 minutes after I'd come inside from the first watch...http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S11621797

From 6 to 1030...  Here are a few photos I got of some of the lower birds.

I like this one because you can see one of the higher flight line birds in the same frame.

A portion of one of the last kettles of the day.

5 of the 6 GREGs that went over, a salvage yardbird for 2012 (#84).

The SSHAs were also another yardbird (#83).

The BWHA total represents the largest total for the species I've ever seen in the midwest (by a huge margin...250 my previous single site high count in eBird).  It is only slightly behind my life high count of 1200 from Bentsen State Park in the LRGV of Texas.

residue

...found this in my kid's sand box this morning:

My guess is Setophaga greater secondary covert.  MAWA maybe???  I only say this because I pulled hundreds of these off unsuspecting little maggies a few years back.  Whhhaaaaahahahahahahahahaha!!

And for your reading enjoyment:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S11610269

Nuttin in particular

 An early White-crown which somehow beat both Myrtle and Palm Warblers to my yard: 

A new visitor to the bath:

 Haven't had any Myrtles or Palms yet (thankfully), but this is definitely a sign of the beginning of the end:

 Also nailed a warbler I can finally be positive of its ID, a TEWA in good lighting and focused well:

Other than that it has been slow pickings the past few days. I can feel BLBW and WIWA slipping through the cracks which are both a travesty to miss when putting in a 180+ year...

Swainson's Hawk

Yep, a rufous adult over the swamp lair yesterday with about 200 Broad-wings.  Surprising too it happened at 6:30pm - a little late in the day for raptors but I ain't complaining.

Now I need me one of those Kytes.

Morning flight

Well as we all know, most of the day's newly arrived warblers refuse to sit still (or come into lure) during the first hour or two of sunrise upon their arrival at a stopover. Many of these birds leave the yard before any ID is possible, so I made a concerted effort to photograph as many of the flybys this morning as possible, in hopes of BLBW primarily. Here are my results, and I am banking on Mr. Galick confirming my putative IDs, or offering an ID on the ones I have no clue on. Here we go (new obsession brewing, BTW):

Not sure what to do with this one, but wondering about a dull CMWA?:

Wondering about NOPA here:

Sticking my neck out and saying BBWA (large bill, orangey breast, longish tail), but very low confidence:

Guessing CMWA on this one (next 2 pics same bird): 

Obvious CMWA male on this one (2 pics same bird) (the white upperwing patch rules out all but MAWA/CMWA/BLBW/AUWA/GWWA):

 No clue:, but short tail and white undertail covs has me wondering TEWA:

 No clue:

A little pre-frontal action

Well boyz, we've now had 3 nights of DEAD radar in Grand Rapids, and until this morning no new birds. This morning was strange- I ended up having lots of warblers doing the morning reorientation flight thing, several of which eventually settled near the bath alongside other new Neotrop migrants: 

Then around 3:30PM, this cold front which has been slowly working our way from the plains finally reach me:

So I went outside to see if anything was getting knocked down, and was surprised to have 2 BWHAs

 1 SSHA, and then, by far most surprisingly, a Common Nighthawk (it's been weeks since the last, and it's starting to get late):

Passerines of all stripes were also shuffling around up there in response to the hit of northern air, including this warbler sp. which Sam Galick is going to ID for me (if it's Blackburnian, I will be THRILLED since I am about to miss it for the year) 

This oddity is actually just a wing-molting AMGO, but I thought it looked funny in flight:

and one of dozens of AMROs flying by

Get ready for tonight, boyz, I am anticipating a MASSIVE push of neotrops, and probably 3-5 hours on the roof calling out NFCs. If I am extremely lucky, I hope to add WIWA by NFC, YBCU, CAWA (though this would be exceptionally late), HETH (should be a gimme if a movment occurs), and even some stuff like GRSP and SAVS may come into the picture. We'll see.

So, get up on those roofs beeches!

don't forget the memory card!

Well at least the point blank shot I missed due to leaving the card in the computer wasn't a Connecticut. Instead it was the only nonresident species to come into my lure just now: a spanking Philly Vireo. Let's hope I see it again. Camera is ready **with** card. 175/176

HETH, when I get it in the next week, will finally even out the discrepancy in my year and life yard lists. 180 here I come. 185 would be a nice way to end the year, don't you think?

Yard Lifer #100

Once again, being on the phone while you're working at a home office does wonders for yard birding prospects.  Had a conference call with my boss this afternoon.  Looked out side to see an abnormally-jizzed woodpecker land on the maple out back.  Turned out to be this guy!  Year bird #84

Feels good to join the yard century club, fellas!  I'm livin' the high life...

Wilson's Warbler

Here's a shot of a Wilson's Warbler, in the rain on Friday, my first of year for the yard:

so freakin close

So I have been trying so hard for GWWA the past week, multiple attempts daily to flesh out the warbler/passerine flocks out back (it is not IDable from BWWA by flight call, hence the daytime effort). Well I had written it off as it is now Sept 7 which is pushing the late date for this latitude. I just looked out and saw a GWWA/BWWA coming into the bath and was fully expecting a GWWA, but the bird had to do this to me:

Another highlight from today is a Black Duck which flew by with 2 MALL:

Been doing the Higbee dike thing and trying to get flight shots, in prep for some rare flyby passerine, with my results getting better and better, slowly but surely.

 Finally, a couple other interesting birds from today: