5/1 - East Rock Park

Had a very nice morning birding with Alex Burdo, James Orrico, Brian Webster, and John Oshlick at East Rock Park today. We started at the Giant Steps around 6:15am and were greeted by a couple waves of migrants. Male Yellow-rumps dominated, as expected this early in the month. Highlights here included a heard-only (damn) HOODED WARBLER, WORM-EATING WARBLER, and a splendid MAGNOLIA WARBLER. We had 9 of our 11 warbler species at this spot.

We then moved onto the River Trail where things were pretty slow, but we added Yellow Warbler and an adult male ORCHARD ORIOLE to the tally, among a few others. Then we walked Trowbridge Drive, which was also quiet, but held our FOY AMERICAN REDSTART. We ended up at the monument where we picked out a single BLACK VULTURE among the TVs and had a few migrating swallows including a male PURPLE MARTIN.

Other birders throughout the park added 3 more warblers to bring the species count to 14, but no southern overshoots were found today. Just the expected stuff, with the possible exception being Hooded which is quite uncommon away from breeding sites. I actually added two personal East Rock birds today: Black Vulture and Purple Martin.

Here's the full list (61 species, though I may be leaving out a few birds I didn't personally see): 
Wood Duck
Common Loon (flyby)
5 DC Cormorant (flyby)
Great Blue Heron (flyby)
7 Turkey Vultures
Black Vulture
Osprey
2 Red-tailed Hawk
15 Ring-billed Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
2 Mourning Dove
Rock Pigeon
Chimney Swift
Belted Kingfisher
Downy Woodpecker
2 Hairy Woodpeckers
2 Northern Flicker
2 Great Crested Flycatcher
Blue-headed Vireo
6 Warbling Vireos
5 Blue Jay
3 Fish Crow
Purple Martin
2 Barn Swallow
2 Northern Rough-winged Swallow
4 swallow sp.
Black-capped Chickadee
3 Tufted Titmice
Carolina Wren
House Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
2 Blue-gray Gnatcatchers
Wood Thrush
30 American Robin
13 Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
20 European Starling
5 Nashville Warbler
6 Northern Parula
4 Yellow Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
40 Yellow-rumped Warbler
4 Black-throated Green Warblers
8 Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Worm-eating Warbler
Ovenbird
Hooded Warbler
2 Scarlet Tanager
4 Song Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
2 White-throated Sparrow
5 Northern Cardinal
4 Rose-breasted Grosbeak
8 Red-winged Blackbird
10 Common Grackle
3 Brown-headed Cowbird
Orchard Oriole
3 Baltimore Orioles
4 American Goldfinch

- NB

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