This morning I found a Prothonotary Warbler which happened to be a lifer for me and my 200th bird for the year so I felt pretty good about that. After telling the Pelee world about this endangered bird I returned to take some photos of it.
It was constantly looking around for food in every direction.
What's down there?
How about over here?
Or up there?
A mere 50 meters down the trail was another endangered species. A Yellow-breasted Chat popped up out of the undergrowth to feed from a Sumac tree:
Not a bad morning!
By the end of the day I had seen 3 individual Prothonotary Warblers!
Yesterday I visited Ken Burrell and Brandon Holden on Pelee Island where I joined them in some intense rare bird searches. Ken's amazing ears picked out a Golden-winged Warbler almost immediately after stepping out of the car.
But those certainly weren't the only warblers seen in the park these past few days. Some of the more common ones include:
Yellow Warbler at the tip:
Black-throated Blue Warbler:
Black-throated Green Warbler:
Blackburnian Warbler:
Palm Warbler:
And today I found 4 Blue-winged Warblers!:
Other fun birds around the park include
Blue-headed Vireo:
Ruby-crowned Kinglet:
Northern Mockingbird:
38 Willets at the tip today (lots more pictures at the end of this post):
Veery:
The Willets remained at the tip for at least most of the morning and allowed me to get many pictures:
Blue-headed Vireo:
Grackle keeping the enemies off of his food:
Who's that down there?
This Yellow Warbler was trying to attract attention by behaving like a Prothonotary Warbler:
Willet eating a smelt:
The Prothonotary came within 2 meters!
