Epic Migration

My birding vacation has come to a closing... Tomorrow morning I wake up to the sights and sounds of heavy machinery instead of chirping birds and fresh air. I have no regrets, for I witnessed a migration of epic proportions. This was beyond my wildest dreams!

I couldn't pick a better week to be off! Storms pushed the cold air masses to the north and opened the floodgates for the migrants. Last week Saturday morning started off with a walk at Colonial Park in the early morning hours. Migration had been a slow start already. That was the vibe when I walked down the first trail past the first bridge. I had seen a few warblers, some woodpeckers, nothing major. By the time I made it to the second bridge, it hit! BAM! A wave off warblers hit the forest and flooded it with song! Chestnut Sided, Magnolia, Bay Breasted, Wilson's, Yellow Rumped, Blackburnian and 12 other species of warblers fell before my binoculars like a slideshow. I had no time to pick my camera! Three hours later and more sightings of tanagers, vireos, orioles and others, I walked out the park with 65 species for that morning. A personal best outing since Harrington Beach last summer.

That afternoon, Tender Heart and I set out to drive through Bong in Kenosha Co. Another great outing! Many of the typical prairie species had returned. Eastern Kingbirds, Orchid Orioles, Savannah Sparrows, Eastern Meadowlark (shown singing below), Eastern Towhees as well as others. Even saw my first ever Tuffed Titmouse! Finished that outing with 62 species... A great day!

 
During the duration of the week off, I spent my time birding locally with visits to Myers Park where I seen this (see below) beautiful breeding plumaged Black Bellied Plover, Soras, Green Herons, Great Blue Herons, American Pipits as well as many gulls and terns

  
North Beach can be another hot spot for migrating shorebirds... Yeah, I saw the huge flocks of staging Ring Billed and Herring Gulls hanging nearby flocks of Caspian, Fornster's and Common Terns. The highlights were the Sanderlings, Semipalmated Plovers, Willets and this endangered Piping Plover that skittered past me! (see below)

We also made visits to Smolenski Park, River Bend, Shoop Park, Grant Park in South Milwaukee, Chiwaukee Prairie in Kenosha Co. Many species where seen! Among those highlights were this vagrant specie, a Northern Mockingbird (see below) at the lighthouse.

This migration was getting HOT, in reality, the water was just boiling in the pressure cooker.... Tender Heart and I learned this the "fun" way at Horicon Marsh last Saturday. Our slow drive down the shoulder on Hwy 49 proved quiet save for some Canada Goose, Mallard, Redhead Ducks, some Sandhill Cranes, a couple a Northern Harriers hunting and a Bald Eagle.

Turned into the Auto Tour & Trails, the pressure cooker EXPLODED! A beautiful Scarlet Tanager greeted us with a pose (see below). This was a good sign of things to come....

  
Some Great Egrets flew in the greet us. Saw Black Terns flying around, doing their flying acrobats with Barn and Tree Swallows over the marshes. Bobolinks, Eastern Kingbirds, Eastern Wood Peewees and phoebes were in the fields. The absolute highlight was a warbler fallout we saw.... Starting with Cape May Warblers (see below)

This Blackburnian Warbler...

Magnolia Warbler...

Blackpoll Warbler....

We have never seen many warblers at one time before! Instead of looking up the trees and getting a "warbler neck", we were getting a warbler whiplash! They were at eye level, flying past us, landing just a couple of feet from us and giving us great views. Three hours later, we left the Auto Tour & Trails seeing 20 species of warblers and finished with 81 species total! My personal best day of bird watching!

The show wasn't over yet! The encore was getting started! Heading towards Dike Road in the middle of Horicon we saw an endangered Whooping Crane! (see below). Talk about luck!

 

 During our three hour drive down the gravelly Dike Road we saw some more warblers, more Canada Goose (with goslings), more Redhead Ducks, coots, a couple of American Bitterns snaking away through high reeds and great views of American White Pelicans floating around.... (see below)

All in all, this was a great week to a view migration. I'm glad that I took the time off of work to see all this. Think I'm going to do this again next year!