Lake Superior ebirders Big Day Recap Friday, 26 May 2017 Given this year s late migration and persistent northerly winds, the Lake Superior ebirders waited a few extra days to hit the field this year, hoping to capitalize on a late-week forecast of southerly winds likely to yield more active migration. We were not disappointed as the night s radar lit up with birds and sent us to short slumber with more anticipation than ever. Starting at 2:20 at Ryan s house near Washburn, we immediately detected a great night flight of calling birds, picking up Gray-cheeked and Swainson s Thrushes and a surprise Virginia Rail giving its kid-dick call as it flew overhead under the veil of darkness. A new yard bird for Ryan! A stop in the sandy pine-oak barrens of the Chequamegon National Forest yielded several Barred Owls, E. Whip-poor-wills, and more thrushes, followed shortly after by a begging juvenile Great Horned Owl and the nocturnal flight call of a Black-billed Cuckoo. At a coastal wetland near Ashland we added singing Marsh Wren, Sora, and our first Common Nighthawk before heading inland to a wet, tallgrass field in hopes of a Le Conte s Sparrow. Success! The dawn chorus yielded American Bittern, Wilson s Snipe, Pied-billed Grebe, and Sedge Wren at restored wetlands on private lands south of Ashland. We then trekked farther south to mesic woodlands where the ethereal song of the Wood Thrush gave us a slam of all the expected thrushes before 5am. Fields in the Sanborn-Marengo area produced Upland Sandpiper, Brewer s Blackbird, Eastern Meadowlark, Bobolink, and Vesper Sparrow. A Yellow-throated Vireo singing in a nearby woodlot furnished a new Ashland County bird for Nick! After stumbling onto an American Pipit just south of Ashland, we headed into town to pick up N. Cardinal and Chimney Swift, though we missed House Finch, which has greatly declined here in the past decade. Our first stop on the Ashland lakefront, near the east end breakwall, revealed a nice albeit distant flight of terns. Among the many Commons were a single Black Tern and several Caspians. A lone Willet highlighted small 10pm radar showed big migration underway! Willet -- Erik Bruhnke
Nick poses with some Dunlin along the shores of Chequamegon Bay. numbers of shorebirds present, which also included Ruddy Turnstone, Dunlin, and Semipalmated Plover. Calm winds and thus a flat lake helped us pick out three distant Ruddy Ducks, a species we don t see every year on Chequamegon Bay. After getting buzzed by the local nesting pair of Peregrine Falcons, we found Trumpeter Swans in the Fish Creek sloughs and various lingering waterfowl on the bay such as Greater Scaup, Ring-necked Duck, Bufflehead, C. Goldeneye, and Gadwall. Despite light rain throughout the morning, we had tallied 122 species by 8am, which one friend quipped was before most folks had breakfast! Just outside Washburn again, conifer-rich Big Rock County Park gave us Blue-headed Vireo, Winter Wren, Goldencrowned Kinglet, Canada Warbler, Northern Parula, and Pine Warbler, among other species. A nearby Olive-sided Flycatcher was our first of several on the day. Our flycatcher success continued with a Great Crested soon after and then Least, Yellow-bellied, and Eastern Wood- Pewee at the mouth of the Onion River, which also hosted great warbler action, 16 Spotted Sandpipers on the beach, and a distant Red-throated Loon, a nice find Nessie? No! Red-throated Loon a mile out? Yes! -- Erik Bruhnke for any Big Day. The Bayfield Fish Hatchery also had great eye-level warbler action but yielded little new. Not far off, however, a Black-throated Blue singing within ear shot of a Golden-winged Warbler was music to our ears. Nick & Ryan scan Lake Superior toward the Apostle Islands.
En route to the south shore at Cornucopia we picked up a Red-headed Woodpecker, a species that has shown very well throughout Wisconsin this spring. A group of 14 Eastern Kingbirds on a single fence line had our hearts racing. Alas, no Fork-tailed Flycatchers or Western Kingbirds were among them. In Cornucopia we found our first and only vagrant of the day, a Northern Mockingbird, another species showing unusually well in the state this year. There we also had a nice flight of Cedar Waxwings, and some boreal-loving species, namely Pine Siskin, Palm, Cape May, and Blackpoll Warblers. By noon we had tallied 153 species, which was already near our average final tally for previous Big Days. We were ready to document any rarity that might show itself. And this N. Mockingbird fit the bill. -- Ryan Brady With renewed vigor we headed to Bark Point, a known migrant trap on good migration days. Chaos reigned as birds were abundant, a single flock yielding 94 warblers of 18 species! The group included at least 12 Magnolias, as well as two Philadelphia Vireos, another new species for the day. Though we added Sanderling, Least Sandpiper, Turkey Vulture, and Sharp-shinned Hawk, Herbster and Port Wing were less fruitful than usual owing to a strong lake wind and very choppy waves. It was a brisk 48 degrees on the lakeshore near the lunch hour. Erik scans the vast, scenic shoreline of Lake Superior near Herbster. From Port Wing we headed south into the pine barrens south of Iron River, the temperature climbing to 73 degrees just ten miles inland. There we tallied one of our best finds of the day a Kirtland s Warbler!
That face you make after scoring a Kirtland's Warbler on your Big Day. -- Erik Bruhnke We picked up three other targets there Dark-eyed Junco, Eastern Towhee, and Scarlet Tanager but missed four others, including Field Sparrow, Sharp-tailed Grouse, Connecticut Warbler, and Red Crossbill. Farther east in Delta a 5pm stakeout for White-breasted Nuthatch at a feeder proved successful, as did a quick run to a local lake for nesting Osprey. As we headed back toward Ashland we had less mop up to do this year than most. We finally crossed paths with a Western Meadowlark near Benoit, and then stumbled onto our last bird of the day around 6:30pm, a Northern Shoveler keeping the company of two Mallards. Nick and Erik scan a beautiful inland lake, where we spotted a nesting Osprey, one of our last species of the day.
In the end we finished with 171 species for the day, ten species better than our previous Big Day best of 161 in 2015, mostly because we hit the most active migration day we ve ever had for a birdathon. We found 25 of 27 expected warblers, including Kirtland s but excluding Bay-breasted and Connecticut. We did great on flycatchers, thrushes, and vireos, mediocre on waterfowl and shorebirds, and rounded things out with Red-throated Loon, Red-headed Woodpecker, and Black Tern. And perhaps craziest of all? We didn't get skunked by White-breasted Nuthatch, Downy Woodpecker, or Northern Harrier, which has happened more often than we d like to admit. In fact, we saw more Downy Woodpeckers and Northern Harriers on this day than the previous five years of birdathon Big Days combined! We re again proud to have tallied all 171 of our species within a 20-mile radius circle centered just west of Ashland and spanning only portions of Ashland and Bayfield Counties. This is a clear testament to the incredible diversity, quality, and accessibility of habitats that the Chequamegon Bay region has to offer. We are lucky to call this place home and can t wait to do it all again in 2018! Many thanks to all who pledged in support of our team in this year s Great Wisconsin Birdathon. If you have friends who might be interested in our day or supporting our team, please pass this account along. Thank you! Curious about exactly which birds we found? Here s the full list of 171 species: 1. Canada Goose 2. Trumpeter Swan 3. Wood Duck 4. Gadwall 5. American Black Duck 6. Mallard 7. Blue-winged Teal 8. Northern Shoveler 9. Redhead 10. Ring-necked Duck 11. Greater Scaup 12. Lesser Scaup
13. Bufflehead 14. Common Goldeneye 15. Hooded Merganser 16. Common Merganser 17. Red-breasted Merganser 18. Ruddy Duck 19. Ring-necked Pheasant 20. Ruffed Grouse 21. Wild Turkey 22. Red-throated Loon 23. Common Loon 24. Pied-billed Grebe 25. Double-crested Cormorant 26. American Bittern 27. Great Blue Heron 28. Green Heron 29. Turkey Vulture 30. Osprey 31. Northern Harrier 32. Sharp-shinned Hawk 33. Bald Eagle 34. Broad-winged Hawk 35. Red-tailed Hawk 36. Virginia Rail 37. Sora 38. Sandhill Crane 39. Semipalmated Plover 40. Killdeer 41. Upland Sandpiper 42. Ruddy Turnstone 43. Sanderling 44. Dunlin 45. Least Sandpiper 46. Semipalmated Sandpiper 47. Wilson's Snipe 48. American Woodcock 49. Spotted Sandpiper 50. Greater Yellowlegs 51. Willet 52. Bonaparte's Gull 53. Ring-billed Gull 54. Herring Gull 55. Caspian Tern 56. Black Tern 57. Common Tern 58. Rock Pigeon 59. Mourning Dove 60. Black-billed Cuckoo 61. Great Horned Owl 62. Barred Owl 63. Common Nighthawk 64. Eastern Whip-poor-will 65. Chimney Swift 66. Ruby-throated Hummingbird 67. Belted Kingfisher 68. Red-headed Woodpecker 69. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 70. Downy Woodpecker 71. Hairy Woodpecker 72. Northern Flicker 73. Pileated Woodpecker 74. American Kestrel 75. Merlin 76. Peregrine Falcon 77. Olive-sided Flycatcher 78. Eastern Wood-Pewee 79. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 80. Alder Flycatcher 81. Least Flycatcher 82. Eastern Phoebe 83. Eastern Kingbird 84. Great Crested Flycatcher 85. Yellow-throated Vireo 86. Blue-headed Vireo 87. Philadelphia Vireo 88. Warbling Vireo 89. Red-eyed Vireo 90. Blue Jay 91. American Crow 92. Common Raven 93. Northern Rough-winged Swallow 94. Tree Swallow 95. Bank Swallow 96. Barn Swallow 97. Cliff Swallow 98. Black-capped Chickadee 99. Red-breasted Nuthatch 100. White-breasted Nuthatch 101. House Wren 102. Winter Wren 103. Sedge Wren 104. Marsh Wren
105. Golden-crowned Kinglet 106. Ruby-crowned Kinglet 107. Eastern Bluebird 108. Veery 109. Gray-cheeked Thrush 110. Swainson's Thrush 111. Hermit Thrush 112. Wood Thrush 113. American Robin 114. Gray Catbird 115. Brown Thrasher 116. Northern Mockingbird 117. European Starling 118. American Pipit 119. Cedar Waxwing 120. Ovenbird 121. Northern Waterthrush 122. Golden-winged Warbler 123. Black-and-white Warbler 124. Tennessee Warbler 125. Orange-crowned Warbler 126. Nashville Warbler 127. Mourning Warbler 128. Common Yellowthroat 129. American Redstart 130. Kirtland's Warbler 131. Cape May Warbler 132. Northern Parula 133. Magnolia Warbler 134. Blackburnian Warbler 135. Yellow Warbler 136. Chestnut-sided Warbler 137. Blackpoll Warbler 138. Black-throated Blue Warbler 139. Palm Warbler 140. Pine Warbler 141. Yellow-rumped Warbler 142. Black-throated Green Warbler 143. Canada Warbler 144. Wilson's Warbler 145. Le Conte's Sparrow 146. Chipping Sparrow 147. Clay-colored Sparrow 148. Dark-eyed Junco 149. White-crowned Sparrow 150. White-throated Sparrow 151. Vesper Sparrow 152. Savannah Sparrow 153. Song Sparrow 154. Swamp Sparrow 155. Eastern Towhee 156. Scarlet Tanager 157. Northern Cardinal 158. Rose-breasted Grosbeak 159. Indigo Bunting 160. Bobolink 161. Red-winged Blackbird 162. Western Meadowlark 163. Eastern Meadowlark 164. Brewer's Blackbird 165. Common Grackle 166. Brown-headed Cowbird 167. Baltimore Oriole 168. Purple Finch 169. Pine Siskin 170. American Goldfinch 171. House Sparrow