Stéphane’s Posting for Sept. 24, 2011

Chat!

After a long day of rain, the sun is back, bringing warmth and birds with it. And to our delighted surprise, we got a very unexpected visitor in our nets this morning: a Yellow-breasted Chat! Quite far from the tiny outpost they hold in southwestern Ontario, this young is the second-ever chat at Cabot Head. Maybe there was some reverse migration yesterday, birds going North to escape the bad weather. Whatever it was, we enjoyed this huge and strange warbler, unlike any other of the wood-warblers.

Also uncommon in our nets, we banded a young female Scarlet Tanager! Not scarlet but a bright yellow and green…

A Yellow-billed Cuckoo was briefly spotted. Small waves of birds moved through this morning, a nice change from the feathery desert of the last week. A total of 6 warblers were detected, although some species with only one or a handful of individuals (American Redstart, Nashville Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler). Actually, only the Yellow-rumped Warbler was seen in some numbers.

So, it was a day under the color yellow!

Stéphane