Tour de Warbler (longish)

[Dmcwhir513 at aol.com]

Chatters -

Took a friend, Mark Brazil, around Michigan over this last weekend, about 3.5 
days total.  We birded together a few times when I was living on Okinawa. He 
is a Brit ex-pat living and working in Hokkaido, currently guiding for 
Zegrahm, working on his second round-the-world air ticket this year(!!).

He has spent some time in the past birding on the periphery of NA and has 
seen a good sampling of the birds, but was interested in finding wood warblers.  
After some pre-scouting and thought, I figured we could see about 150 species 
for him and maybe 20 warblers.

As it turns out, duh, it's not so easy to show birds to people as to hear 
them; however, he did see or hear 147 species and I was able to show him 19 
warblers.  I heard or saw another 10 species, including 3 other warblers we could 
not get on.  In the process, I (re)learned several things.

If you are going to show people birds, especially if they like to spend time 
appreciating them, it's hard to underestimate how long it will take to do a 
route. The first (and 2nd and 3rd) Blue Jay, N Cardinal, Am Goldfinch, 
Chestnut-sided Warbler, etc., are pretty fabulous birds if you have not seen them 
before. Mark remarked several times on how colorful our birds are.

Call playback is simply amazing if you want people to actually see birds.  
I'm not a big fan of it; however, this situation seemed to warrant and I tried 
to be very judicious in using it.  I did buy an iPod recently, then left it to 
the last minute to figure out how to use it.  Resorted instead to a CD player, 
the Stokes CDs, and a powered RadioShack mini amplifier - speaker (Cat No 
277-1008C).  This rig worked REAL well and the little speaker is a gem, good 
volume control without overdriving the signal.

Calling drops off enormously in the last few days of June.  On the other 
hand, the birds are still on their territories.  So, my scouting paid off.  Even 
if there was little or no calling, the birds often responded to the CDs by 
appearing in virtually the same spot I had seen them several weeks before.

There is a very nice booklet out, called "Warblers of the Great Lakes Region 
and Eastern North America" by Chris G. Earley. (A Firefly Book)  At $16.95, it 
was a great gift / momento to send along with my friend and I learned more 
than a few things from it as well.

Most of what we saw was expected.  The most unusual were an immie Bonaparte's 
Gull at Rogers City on the 30th, two singing Tennessee Warblers at WPBO on 
the 1st, and a briefly calling Mourning Warbler at Ionia SP on the 2nd.  

We had many good moments to share, too many to tell here.  A pair of 
Kirtland's feeding within 6-8' of us without any pishing or CD.  Wonderful choruses of 
Hermit Thrush - sufficient reason alone to go Up North. Flocks totaling 30-40 
Evening Grosbeaks at the Point, a mixed foraging flock of crossbills on the 
Trout Lake loop, etc.  Last warbler was Blue-winged near Ionia.

Thanks to several people with helpful posts: Dan Sparks-Johnson and Allen 
Chartier for west Washtenaw County, Dan again for Nayanquing / Mio, and Joyce 
Peterson for the Trout Lake loop.  Bruce Bowman helped me earlier in Washtenaw 
and Jim Dawe was a fount of knowledge regarding the Mio area.

Take care - 

Doug McWhirter


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