Thrush Movement in HUGE

Dudes,

I had a massive thrush flight this morning around 5AM. In about 20 minutes of listening, I had between 120-150 Swainson's move over. With this large thrush movement, I added two new yard birds:

GCTH (#61/63) & VEER (#62/64)

I also had 4 different warbler notes, each of which was different. MUST. GET. MICRO-PHONE.

Finally, it's BACK ON

And mine aren't House Sparrows, unlike at Curtis's place...

This is the first time this fall that I've had any substantial #s of warbs in the bath. It required much tweaking of the setup out there to get them comfortable enough to come in. For the longest time birds would approach the bath within a foot but balk at actually getting in, then fly off. But finally, today they gathered the courage to do it.

The tally:
TEWA- 9
NAWA- 4
CSWA- 1



Now to just get some more diversity...

CP

Just a little MOWA

A gorgeous adult male Morning Warbler came to investigate the bath this evening. It wasn't around long enough for a photo op, but hopefully it will be back tomorrow. Other highlights at the water feature today were adult male Cape May Warbler & Ovenbird. Lots of Swainson's Thrush eating grapes in the tree tops. Yesterday a female BTBW was outside the bay window for a few minutes. Best bird of the weekend was an Osprey (146) Sunday evening that leisurely glided fifty feet overhead as a group of us were enjoying the spectacle of hundreds of migrating Black Saddlebags and Green Darners in the south field.

RTHU just in time

In the gale south winds I had a long overdue life yardbird in the form of a Ruby-throat buzz me while I was watching a young Myrtle Warb hop around a dead snag. I glared at the MYWA for a while just so he knew I didn't appreciate him signaling the end of quality warbler flocks is nearer than I'd like...

gahhhhhhhhhh

So, yard birding of late has been completely useless for the most part. Absolutely zero warblers all weekend. I did get a good look at Mr. Black-billed Cuckoo today though. That did make up for some of the pain, since its always cool to see one of these unusual/odd birds. He was giving me the old once over as well. Well, I've got plenty of webworm/tent caterpillars etc, I hope he enjoys his stay at the Warner Ranch. I'm definitely in warbler withdraw. Help.

New fall warbs and an Oporornis!

Dudes, had a nice morning of migrants here. Best warbler diversity of the fall thus far (9 species). Highlights were a flock of 4 Cape May Warblers in one spruce (woke up to a warbler chipping right outside my window which turned out to be a CMWA...). A lone Northern Parula foraging low in the willows and grass with TEWA, AMRE, and BLPW was cool.I also had my first Common Yellowthroat since late May today which I put photos of up just for Putnam's benefit.The other additions were a Wilson's Warbler and a flyover Oporornis species that was almost certainly MOWA based on the flight call it gave (sounded very similar to TEWA/NAWA, was definitely not a CONW zeep, and had a grayish hood). I'm on the fence whether I can count it as a MOWA with the observation I had. Thoughts? If there are objections, I'm okay just calling it an Oporornis species.
RBGR, VEER, SWTH, BOBO, and SOSA rounded out my migrants for the AM.

Bird Bath Bonanza...

Check out the Bonanza at the Bird Bath...

Putnam, I think I beat you by a long shot for "shear number of birds in the bath at one time"!

In addition to this "excitement" (if you want to call a flock of HOSP's exciting) I added the following birds over the last few days...

9/2 - #97 - Veery (some people actually get to SEE them in their yards) I also saw a Swainson's Thrush and had a bad look at what was likely a Gray-cheeked foraging by the Swainson's.

And to the Warbler War...(it's been slim pickn's here):

8/27 - Magnolia Warbler

9/3 - Ovenbird

Today I had only Red-eyed Vireo and a Wilson's Warbler for migrants...and they were like pulling teeth to find too. ARGH!
On a positive note, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have finally become regular to my feeder! YEAH!

RHWO!!

New life yardbird, Goodbye to Haas's lead in the life yardbird contest.

More new yearbirds

Well fellas, the radar has finally heated up, and sitting on the rooftop tonight finally yielded my most wanted late Aug/early Sep life yardbird: the dreaded VEER! Couldn't believe I actually heard it. Then, the local GHOW started singing for about 15-20 minutes, for the first time this year. Watch out Fitzy- I am knocking down the remainder of my easy ones, and I also have recorded and heard by ear many tens of warbler seeps, including tonight potential COYE (buzzy and lower pitched than other warblers, but sonogram necessary to confirm). Haven't had time to analyze the last few night's recordings yet...

ALl I can say is... When it looks like this, you need to go outside and sit on the roof for a while. I am actually starting to hear the difference between the double-banded upseeps (non buzzy), vs zeep (short, high pitched but with slight buzz) vs longer zeeps (CSWA, MAGW, etc.), etc. I think with much experience these broad categories should be separable by NFC alone. God this is awesome.

A few pictoral highlights from this AM

Nothing new this morning despite decent warbler flight (other than supplanting my previous Baypoll with quite a few definite Blackpolls). A LEFL was my first of the fall here among 42 species for the morning. Here are a couple of photos that turned out okay:Too bad that twig was casting a shadow on its head...
Nice and close flyby (one of three young coops circling the wetland this morning), unfortunately the sun was behind the bird rather than behind me!

NOWA

Much anticipated for the fall. It stayed for all of 5 minutes. Many other of its traveling companions dropped in this morning, as well.

The Wastelands Milestone

Wednesday night, there was a huge push of Swainson's Thrush over The Wastelands. That was #59 for the year (#61 for all time). This morning, a decent swallow push finally brought Cliff over the property for the magical #60 (#62 for all time). Whoohoo!

A distant warbler 'spuh' at least gets me entered into this Fall Warbler War business.