Day 128: May 7th – Bashakill warblers

Overcast, cool (high 50s), calm

       The Sullivan County Bashakill Swamp has a reputation as being one of the best birding havens in southern New York State.  And with good reason!  The area boasts one of the highest diversity of avian life in the state throughout the year, and May is the time to bird the Bash.  May is the migratory song-bird peak in much of the northern states, and the Bashakill has everything a traveling warbler could ask for….plenty of water, plenty of bugs for munching, and plenty of cover for safety.

       Over the past week, the birding has been exceptional here at the Bash.  Storm fronts moving through have induced the warblers to sit tight until the time is right for moving further north.  Unfortunately for us, many of the warblers apparently chose to move on last night as the numbers diminished considerably since yesterday.  Still, we ended up with 44 species, 11 of which were wood warblers of which three of those were “first of the year” birds.

       When we first arrived, there were dozens of birders parading up and down the dirt road to the parking lot of what is known as the “Stop Sign Trail”.  With so many eyes trained to the canopy of the forest, you just knew there were birds and they were going to be seen.  A beautiful Magnolia warbler with its bold black streaking against a lemon yellow body was our first sighting of the day.  What a way to begin.

Magnolia warbler ('09 archival image)

       Soon, it became obvious that the bird of the day as far as numbers was concerned was the American redstart.  Black and yellow is again the predominant color scheme of this warbler.  There aerial acrobatics as they pursue flying insects among the branches of the trees is incredible to watch.  They will often appear to simply drop off of a branch and let gravity carry them down to their prey at which time they take over and use their powers of flight to maneuver in for the hit.

       Our next year-bird was the Chestnut sided warbler.  The image here was the best I could capture given the overcast skies and distance to the bird.  Still, the radiant colors of yet another warbler in breeding plumage is hard to miss.

Blue-winged warbler - Linear Park

       Our last bird of the day was at a nearby site known as Linear Park.  We heard the recognizable “berrr-buzzzz” song of the Blue-winged warbler and quickly found where it was perched.  Although not the first sighting of this handsome passerine, it certainly was worthy of another photo and another posting in this blog. 

       It’s still early in May and we know that there is much more to come at the Bash.  We will certainly return in the near future to find what new treasures the swamp