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Blue Wall Preserve, 21 September




In search of a change of pace and a challenge, I got myself assigned to cover the Blue Wall Preserve in Greenville county, SC, for yesterday's North American Migration Count.


Arriving at the Blue Wall at 6:30 am, I managed to get in 45 minutes of nocturnal listening before first Cardinal, picking up the expected brown-backed thrushes (Gray-cheeked, Swainson's, Veery, Wood) as well as a bonus Great Horned Owl. I decided the coyotes I could hear weren't reportable and I needn't worry about counting them.

As light came up, just as I had secretly hoped, the trees filled with warblers. In ten minutes I found what I figured was the bird of the day - a female Golden-winged Warbler, seen just well enough to conclusively identify her. Warblers continued to materialize in the strengthening light, almost all of the hoped for "mountain" warblers - Tennessee, Blackburnians everywhere, Chestnut-sided - and others - American Redstart, Hooded, Magnolia, Cape May, Black-throated Blue, Black-and-Whites everywhere. And I wasn't even out of the parking lot yet.

A strangely familiar but oddly cadenced song drew me back to a spur trail. Listening closely, I finally identified Blue-headed Vireo as the singer. As I stood listening and watching too many Blue-headed Vireos fighting, a Baltimore Oriole appeared at the top of a sapling.

I was stopped at the information kiosk by a group of warblers in the trees. As I stood trying to identify warblers moving at warp speed, one bird finally slowed down and I found myself looking at an adult male Golden-winged Warbler just above eye-level. I stopped breathing. The bird dallied for a full five minutes, feeding, in view nearly the whole time. When he disappeared, I finally took a breath. As I stood there, boggled and dazzled and vaguely shaking my head, the bird reappeared in the next tree over so close I could have touched him. Breathing was suspended once more. Again he diddled around, only rarely disappearing behind foliage, for another five minutes. Then he followed the rest of the flock zipping back into the dense trees away from me. I sat down to collect my wits. It wasn't yet 8:00 am and I was never out of sight of my car.

The fun wasn't over yet, even after a start like that. A short trip down yet another spur trail, to look at an oddball Phoebe, found a female Wilson's Warbler. Agitated Ovenbirds at the end of the trail, with their little slanting crowns raised at me, brought a smile. A yellow-chartreuse Scarlet Tanager youngster made a very careful inspection of me from a perch just ahead of me down the trail. A heavy-footed scuffling in the leaves off the trail told me the bear wasn't far though I never saw it. Then again, I didn't stop to look for the bear. The rhododendron thickets were full of tussling Wood Thrushes, "wit wit wit", and their nocturnal note, a sometimes bell-like "hee-yee". The least interesting warbler feeding with a group of titmice and chickadees all day was a Hooded and every group of "the usual suspects" had a warbler among them, a Magnolia here, a Black-and White there, another Blackburnian there. I was relieved to find a couple of Pine Warblers close to the end of the day, happy to find some "normal" warblers.

I ended the day, soggy with rain, sodden with trail mud, and slaked with warblers. I had seen 15 species of warbler in a day and the runner-up for bird of the day was a Wilson's Warbler. That's not a bad day for warblers. As hoped, it was an almost overwhelming change of pace and most distinctly a challenge.