An upcoming short business trip to western
CT was a bit too far away from home to go down and back in the same day. So with a hotel stay required, I started to
think about whether I could squeeze in a little local CT birding time not too
far from the site. I need several
not-so-rare migrant passerines for my CT list, so there could certainly be some
possibilities. The day before the trip two
of my targets, Wilson’s Warbler and Olive-sided Flycatcher, were seen at East
Rock Park in Hamden, CT. It wasn’t too
far from my project site, so I figured I could squeeze in a couple hours birding
there in the evening. I had never been
to the park, but got some excellent directions from some local birders, and made
a plan to go there the next day.
But migration was very limited the next
day, and there were no reports of Wilson’s or Olive-sided. Do I rethink my plans? But later in the morning came a report of a third
CT target, Mourning Warbler, also at East Rock Park. It was seen a few times during the day in a
thicket below the Trowbridge stone bridge, but it was a real skulker and only
gave brief and infrequent views. So I
kept with my original plans though of course my target bird changed.
I arrived at about 5 PM and quickly found
the stone bridge and the thicket beneath it.
But other than a pair of Redstarts and a Magnolia Warbler, the area was
extremely quiet. I made my way down to
the thicket and spent the next 90 minutes patiently waiting for the Mourning to
reappear, but to no avail. At times I
thought about heading to other places in the park where Wilson’s had been seen
the day before. But since there were no
Wilson’s reported in the park that day, I figured it was best to just keep
waiting at this spot for my only real possible target bird.
It was 6:30 when I heard a few chip notes
in the brush a short distance to the east.
I went over to investigate and found a small warbler flock with 1 each
of Black-throated Blue, Yellowthroat, Ovenbird, and Black-and-white. Then in the distance I heard a two-part trill
– slower initially then stronger and faster at the end. It sang a couple more times, and I moved closer
to try to hear it better. I pulled up
the Wilson’s Warbler song on my app and it was a near-perfect match for a
couple of the songs. It continued to
sing over the next 10 minutes. That sure
was unexpected.
I returned to the thicket where the Mourning
had been seen and saw some movement in the low branches – but it just turned
out to be the same female Yellowthroat I had seen earlier. But then there was a bit more movement a
couple feet from the Yellowthroat. I
never saw the bird, so just assumed it was one of the other warblers I found a
few minutes earlier. A minute later I
saw some more movement and then a bird flew across the trail. I saw a flash of yellow in the short glimpse
I had – could it be the Mourning? I
continued to see movement in the brush and peered through the foliage getting
only tiny glimpses of parts of the bird – first I saw a yellow belly, then a
greenish back, then a dark upper chest with a darker line as a demarcation from
the yellow. Although I only saw the bird
for maybe 3-4 seconds, and never saw the whole bird at one time, it was the
male Mourning Warbler. Interestingly,
the Yellowthroat popped into the open a few seconds later and gave good
views. Why couldn’t the Mourning have
been that cooperative?
Wilson’s and Mourning Warblers were #317
and #318 for my CT list. I’ve now seen
Wilson’s in 35 states, with the biggest gaps coming in the southeast
states - it's a much more common species out West. (see my statebird map below)
By comparison I’ve only seen Mourning
Warbler in 15 states – in 7 states as a breeder and 8 states as a migrant.
And I now have 2,002 statebirds in New
England.
