The migration conditions have been great the last four nights after several days of less than stellar conditions. I spent at least a part of the last four morning at Arcadia trying to catch up with newly arrived migrants with a big target being Connecticut Warbler. I'll cover today here with the previous three days covered below. I arrived at Arcadia to a little fog and cold temps in the 40's. I had a number of American Woodcocks flying around before dawn plus calling Wood Thrushes in a few spots. The little amount of fog present burned off quick and the day warmed up slowly. I expected a good amount of migrants but it was a little slower than I hoped. Nonetheless I still had some great stuff with the highlight being a Connecticut Warbler that popped up ever so briefly before disappearing back into a hedge never to be seen again despite a lot of effort. I was happy to see it but would have loved a longer look and perhaps a few photos but not today. Other good stuff around for the morning, among the nearly 70 species, included a couple Least Flycatchers, a lucky 13 Eastern Phoebes, small groups of Blue Jays migrating south, nearly a dozen House Wrens, a dozen Lincoln's Sparrows, my first White throated Sparrows of the fall and a total of ten species of warblers (lots more on warblers for the last week at the following link). I was not able to cover some other spots at Arcadia as a folk fest was going on so probably missed out on some other species I could have gotten easily for the day. I managed a total of 97 species at Arcadia over the four mornings I was there this week as fall migration reaches it peak (at least as far as passerine diversity is concerned).
Although I only had a limited amount of time on Friday due to a class I had to take at 8:30 I still hoped I would find lots of birds as once again the migration conditions were great and I heard lots of flight calls early in the evening the night before. I arrived before dawn to a very cold Arcadia with a temperature of 41 degrees! I started off with multiple American Woodcocks flying around and calling a little. Despite the cool temps birds started calling well before the sun was even up. The patchy fog blocked out the sun a bit from warming things up as early as I had hoped. The total warbler number and diversity was very disappointing with just 7 species with a few of those being just a single individual. I did have a few highlights for the morning including two Philadelphia Vireos, at least four Wood Thrushes, my first Ruby crowned Kinglets of the fall, three Lincoln's Sparrows and at least one Dickcissel. I wish I could have stayed longer to see if activity picked up once the sun really warmed things up.
With great migration conditions overnight into Thursday morning I had high hopes as I headed over to Arcadia once again but it was actually a bit slower than the day before. I still had good stuff but I was expecting more. It was already a little breezy when I arrived but not too bad until around 7:30 and it increased from there and eventually made seeing movement in the trees and bushes nearly impossible. Early on I did have some good stuff but nothing too out of the ordinary but a total of 61 species considering the conditions was fairly good.
After activity at Arcadia had trailed off considerably I decided to try my luck at Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River and that stop produced some good stuff despite the continued windy conditions. Highlights included an unidentified empidonax flycatcher, a late Least Flycatcher that actually was singing a bit, at least two (possibly three) Philadelphia Vireos, ten species of warbler (with at least three Tennessee Warblers) among the nearly 35 species over the course of an hour and a half.
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