Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Spring Migration summary

Greater Yellowlegs are common here in our limited wetland areas from mid-July when the first southbound shorebirds come through until the following April, Kirtland's are a whole 'nother story of course.

No big effect on migrants from last nights storms, different layout and also getting late in the month. Whatever, 48 hours ago we had a fallout of Blackburnians and others due to rain, last night not many at all. I was three hours in line taking the dog to the feed store Saturday Vet for shots this morning (social distance and alla that) but I did get out for about an hour.

Lucky day, I got one of these a female Golden-winged Warbler.... (bird photos lifted from the 'net).



Didn't make out the yellow cap but the yellow wing coverts and face pattern was a giveaway, hyperactive too, characteristic of the species. Coulda been some second or third generation backcross ergo no yellow cap on account of golden-wings are steadily disappearing, being genetically swamped and displaced by the closely related blue-winged warbler....




This here is what the male golden-wing looks like....



Both inhabit early successional brush and forest edges so both benefited enormously from the clearing of the original forests, both have a generally similar buzzy song and female golden-wings especially will mate with male blue-wings but it happens the other way too. This hybridization in both directions has been going on so long that the two main hybrid types were considered species in their own right back in the days.



Same pic from earlier of the Hudson Highlands maybe thirty miles upriver from Manhattan....



Back in the seventies, golden-wings were common in that area, blue-wings have since gradually spread up from the south and then swamped and gradually replaced the local golden-wing population. Maybe fifteen years back there was a locally famous among birders singing male Lawrences hybrid type visible from a road on West Point maybe five miles from that photo, two or three years in a row. He got lucky and found mates, blue-winged females, but he was the last half-breed of a disappearing breed.

The few places golden-wings are so far holding steady are in the northern edges of their range, mostly up in Canada, but its getting to be an occasion down here to find one.