Mourning Warbler, Mills River, NC, October 12, 2020

My birding plan for October 12th was to spend the morning at Jackson Park in search of some late fall migrants.  I pulled in at dawn, and soon found a nice migrant flock right at the edge of the parking lot, including my third Golden-winged Warbler of the fall.  I made my way south through the BMX park and by the time I entered the dog park I had a nice tally of 9 warbler species.  It was a great start to the morning.

Just then a text from Kevin Burke came across the Blue Ridge Birders text group– “Mourning warbler at the clay-colored spot”.  The day before, Bob Butler had found a Clay-colored Sparrow along Hooper Lane in a brushy area along the northern edge of Mills River Park.  I was lucky enough to see the Sparrow on the 11th – a new bird for my Henderson County list, but not new for NC.  And now the next day, with a bit of a “Patagonia picnic table effect”, Kevin had found a rare Mourning Warbler in that same patch of brush.  I instantly turned around, sprinted back to my car, and was on my way to Hooper Lane. 

It took me just 15 minutes to get to Hooper Lane, but there were already multiple birders on-site when I arrived.  The bird was last seen just a couple minutes earlier so I was hopeful.  Then just a minute later someone said they had the bird.  Unfortunately I couldn’t get on it before this skulking bird had retreated to the depths of the brush.  A bit later it was spotted again, but I missed it yet again – though at least I saw some movement this time.  The next time it appeared I was able to see its tail, but nothing more.  This was getting frustrating.  Luckily it kept reappearing, and the next time I got great views – finally!  I stayed in the area for the next several hours and saw the bird multiple times.  Including a couple times when it surprisingly stayed in the open for an extended period of time. 

Not a bad trade-off - a little less birding time at Jackson Park for a new statebird.  It’s good to be flexible. 

Mourning Warbler was #306 for my NC statelist.  NC was the 18th state where I’ve seen this species - the blue-shaded states in my statebird map below.  The cross-hatched states are those where the species is regular but I’ve yet to catch up with it.  This skulking bird is not an easy one to find, especially as a migrant.

And now a postscript –

When I moved to NC in August 2019 I came up with a list of 36 possible new NC statebirds that I might see in western NC.  Mourning Warbler was the 35th of these targets that I’ve now checked off.  The last target on that list is Long-tailed Duck, which is actually quite a rarity locally.  Along the way I’ve also added 11 other NC statebirds in western NC that weren’t even on my target list.  Not too many realistic statebird possibilities remain.