There are few times of the year more exciting in the North American birding calendar than the middle weeks of May. Why should this be? The spring sales in birding stores perhaps? The best time to get a bargain on new binoculars? Maybe - I have no idea to be honest…but frankly if you’re looking forward to May for reasons more to do with retail than mass movements you’ve probably not quite grasped what birding is all about, and you’ve probably been sent to this blog by some gremlin hard at work in the offices of Google. Because May, as most birders will tell you, is all about migration.

To change an old song, “Migration ain’t what it used to be” - the world has been losing its migrants for as long as humans first found ways to catch and slaughter them - but it’s still an incredibly exciting time. Birds across the entire planet move from its centre to its edges, leaving wintering grounds in huge waves made up of unimaginably vast numbers of individuals heading to the breeding grounds to find and hold a territory, to mate, and to reproduce. Across North America males in bright breeding colours fidget in treetops or along shorelines, songs pouring out of them as if uncontainable. The drabber (and from a birder’s perspective often harder to identify) females sweep in just behind them. By early May both males and females of birds which have been thousands of miles away for months seem to arrive almost overnight - and the great birding feast is on! Hurrah…

Okay, okay, that’s enough of that. Where were you and what did you see…? Get to the pictures and pithy comments already…

Okay, well, on May 5th I was up at dawn on a sparkling mid-west Chicago morning and heading for the nationally-famous Montrose Point and the ‘Magic Hedge’, along with - it turned out - thousands of migrants (and quite a few birders too). I’ve not been privileged to witness a really good “fall” of migrants before, and walking along the road to the Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary I really figured that ‘today was going to be the day’. Warblers seemed to be everywhere, flicking from tree to tree in the early dawn (’early’ as in too blinking dark to see what they were, and can I be expected to remember what every little bird in America looks like? I think not…)

As the sun came up the trees were full of Palm Warblers and er… more Palm Warblers actually. So were the bushes, the grassy areas, and the shrubs. I’ve never seen so many Palm Warblers. There must have been more Palm Warblers passing through the Chicago area than anywhere else in the entire Lower 48 in the whole of 2008. Marvellous! Especially if you really like Palm Warblers anyway…

Okay, I’m exaggerating, but there were a lot of Palm Warblers. Happily amongst them there were some other warblers too: in fact I hadn’t even reached the Point when I found my life Cerulean Warbler - a Chicago rarity - rocketing through the trees amongst the Palms (a female so not the azure blue and gleaming white male I’ve wanted to see for years, but a distinctive enough short-tailed, dark-crowned, yellowish-throated bird with broad wingbars leaping around trying to avoid the tidal wave of Palm Warblers - it (or another) was seen again later in the morning a number of times incidentally), a male Black-throated Green Warbler, and the first of a building arrival of Yellow-rumped Warblers.

At the hedge itself the brightening morning revealed the first of at least five Northern Waterthrushes, a male American Redstart, the first of three or four Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, and a Least Flycatcher - while overhead the sky was momentarily filled with flocks of Blue Jays making improbably slow progress, their stubby round wings beating hard (is it just me or do Blue Jays look like the avian equivalents of bumblebees and that whole” according to physics they shouldn’t be able to fly” thing?). There were White-crowned Sparrows everywhere, plenty of Swamp Sparrows, a few Savannahs, and at least three or four Lincoln Sparrows (like most of the warblers, my first of the year).

American Redstart Setophaga ruticilla

Blue-grey Gnatcatcher Polioptila caerulea

Least Flycatcher Empidonax minimus

As the morning wore on my initial optimism faded a little. There were obviously thousands of birds on the move - but not so many staying put. Within a hour of the sun rising there seemed to be a clear-out (and this isn’t just me being ungrateful, by the way, the local birders were all saying the same thing too). Birds appeared suddenly and then - just as suddenly - were gone again: a pair of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks quickly came and went (not before I photographed them though); a single Magnolia Warbler, a single Wilson’s Warbler, a single Black-and-white Warbler, a single House Wren, a single Brown Thrasher, a single Yellow-bellied Sapsucker…

Rose-breasted Grosbeak Pheucticus ludovicianus (male, left - female, right)

Black-and-white Warbler Mniotilta varia

Having said that, some birds did hang about for the morning (and, indeed, a Yellow-breasted Chat - another local rarity - was re-found after being seen two days before, popping up in a tree with a Nashville Warbler and an Indigo Bunting I was fortunately standing under, before dropping down into a bush the size of a handkerchief and disappearing again). A scattering of Yellow Warblers sung from the tops of low trees, Ovenbirds in particular seemed in no hurry to move on, picking their way through the undergrowth like tiny chickens, and a nervy Wood Thrush kept being seen as it flew from one hiding-place to the next. And who can tell whether they’re looking at loads of different Ruby-crowned Kinglets or the same hyperactive few covering the whole area more quickly than a walking birder? Not me anyway…

 

Yellow-breasted Chat Icteria virens

Ovenbird Seiurus aurocapillus

Ruby-crowned Kinglet Regulus calendula

Wood Thrush Hylocichla mustelina

 

Should you go to Montrose Point, by the way, it’s always worth wandering down to the beach and the bay as well. This time of the year most of the waterfowl have long gone, of course, but there was a notable flock of Caspian Terns present, and I found three Spotted Sandpipers (all very smart in their spotty summer plumages) on a narrow body of water just below the concrete jetty so loved by the local anglers.

 

Spotted Sandpiper Actitis macularia

Caspian Tern Hydroprogne caspia

As I mentioned before I saw the female Cerulean Warbler two more times before I left, and even as I was on my way out to the main road there did seem to be a dribble of birds arriving (I found an Eastern Wood-peewee, for example, in an area of the Point I’d just walked through twice), but the plane won’t wait for me just because there’s some migration going on!

Reading this back I do sound a little grouchy, but that’s not really the case: the early signs were so good that I really did think I was in for one of those mornings that you talk about for years, but perhaps the weather was so good (the sky was cloudless) that most migrants just pushed on without having to re-position or feed up after fighting headwinds all night. Or maybe my expectations were just too high - and after decades of habitat destruction, insecticides, and hunting and trapping there just aren’t the numbers of birds getting this far north as there used to be…It’ll be interesting to see what other ‘migrant-watchers’ think or experience over the next two weeks.

And I’ve always got a visit to New York in a couple of days time to try again…

 

Day List - Highlights (New for the Year underlined):
Spotted Sandpiper Actitis macularia 3; Caspian Tern Hydroprogne caspia 50+; Chimney Swift Chaetura pelagica 1; Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Sphyrapicus varius 1; Eastern Wood Pewee Contopus virens 1; Least Flycatcher Empidonax minimus 2; Northern Rough-winged Swallow Stelgidopteryx serripennis 20+; Cliff Swallow Petrochelidon pyrrhonota 1; Ruby-crowned Kinglet Regulus calendula 4-5; Cedar Waxwing Bombycilla cedrorum 12; House Wren Troglodytes aedon 1; Grey Catbird Dumetella carolinensis 4-5; Brown Thrasher Toxostoma rufum 1; Hermit Thrush Catharus guttatus 3; Wood Thrush Hylocichla mustelina 1; American Robin Turdus migratorius 30+; Blue-grey Gnatcatcher Polioptila caerulea 3-4; Blue Jay Cyanocitta cristata 20+; Purple Finch Carpodacus purpureus 2; Orange-crowned Warbler Vermivora celata 1; Nashville Warbler Vermivora ruficapilla 1; Yellow Warbler Dendroica petechia 4-5; Magnolia Warbler Dendroica magnolia 1; Yellow-rumped Warbler Dendroica coronata 10+; Black-throated Green Warbler Dendroica virens 1; Palm Warbler Dendroica palmarum 20+; Cerulean Warbler Dendroica cerulea 1; Black-and-white Warbler Mniotilta varia 2; American Redstart Setophaga ruticilla 2; Ovenbird Seiurus aurocapillus 3-4; Northern Waterthrush Seiurus noveboracensis 4-5; Common Yellowthroat Geothlypis trichas 4; Wilson’s Warbler Wilsonia pusilla 1; Yellow-breasted Chat Icteria virens 1; Rufous-sided Towhee Pipilo erythrophthalmus 1; Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia 3; Lincoln’s Sparrow Melospiza lincolnii 3-4; Swamp Sparrow Melospiza georgiana 10+; White-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophrys 10+; White-throated Sparrow Zonotrichia albicollis 5-6; Savannah Sparrow 4-5; Rose-breasted Grosbeak Pheucticus ludovicianus 3; Indigo Bunting Passerina cyanea 1; Baltimore Oriole Icterus galbula 2; Common Grackle Quiscalus quiscula 20+