This has been the strangest spring migration season I can remember. The birds were backed up to the south of us for weeks because of wave after wave of storms from the north. Eventually some birds decided to punch through the unfavorable weather conditions anyway, but because they were running late on their yearly trek to Canada they chose to push past southern Wisconsin entirely.
There were still birds to be discovered if you knew where to look. I added 5 birds to my life list last week including a breathtakingly-beautiful Black-throated Blue Warbler which I spotted (with the help of some friendly birdwatchers) at the Pheasant Branch Conservancy in Middleton.
My yard was eerily quiet this year, however. Some Baltimore Orioles popped in for a day or two, but there was only a handful of them compared to almost a dozen last year.
I saw one female Scarlet Tanager but no males, and not a single Indigo Bunting visited my yard.
My favorite migrants are the warblers and they were almost complete no-shows in my neighborhood. Usually I hear scores of them singing from the treetops for about two weeks in mid-May. This year I only heard two species—the Yellow-Rumped Warbler and the Blackburnian Warbler (which I did manage to spot with binoculars). I took this photo of a Blackburnian Warbler a few years ago:
I’m still tallying up the number of different species I saw during 5 days of intensive birding last week. Despite the fact that there were fewer birds this year, I did manage to score my highest-ever list of warbler species for a season. That made up for the disappointing lack of migrating birds visiting my backyard.
And I don’t ever remember seeing a Junco (aka “snowbird”) in my backyard in mid-May. Does he know something I don’t know?