Wood-warblers at Magee Marsh

Bob and I spent the last few days at Magee Marsh on the shore of Lake Erie, not far from Toledo. We saw lots of migrating birds, including assorted wood-warblers (23 species), thrushes (3 species), vireos, grosbeaks, cuckoos, tanagers and orioles.

The birds pile up here at Magee Marsh because it is one of the few undeveloped places where they can make landfall and find food before they cross Lake Erie to go north to nest. Many of these birds have wintered in the southern United States and in Central and South America.

Most visitors to Magee Marsh, veteran birders as well as rookies, go there for the spring warbler migration. It is possible to see up to 35 species of wood-warbler in the eastern part of the United States during spring and fall migrations. Many of them turn up at Magee Marsh. (9 additional species pass through the states west of the Rocky Mountains.)

Wood-warblers are among the most beautiful of the birds we can see in North America. In breeding plumage many warbler species are stunning: the Cape May Warbler is bright yellow, orange and black; the Black-throated Blue Warbler is a deep blue, black and white; the Blackburnian Warbler has a day-glow orange throat. The sad part of all this is that, even when these birds pass through our neighborhood in eastern Pennsylvania, most people have no idea that they’re here. That’s because so many of these birds sing from the tops of trees, and people do not stop to look for them. At Magee, though, many of these same species can be found at eye level in low bushes and trees.

When the warblers pass through here in Eastern Pennsylvania in the fall, their colors are duller, and sometimes it is difficult to identify them.

Some of the birds passing through Magee were the same species we can see, if we’re lucky, here in and around the Delaware Bay area. This spring I had seen these species before the trip: Yellow Warbler, Northern Parula, Magnolia Warbler, Black-throated-blue Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, Pine Warbler, Prairie Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, American Redstart, Prothonotary Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, Ovenbird, Louisiana Waterthrush, Common Yellowthroat, Hooded Warbler. All were in small numbers – sometimes just one individual.

At Magee Marsh, there were birds everywhere, most of them singing. We saw all of the above except for Yellow-throated Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler and Louisiana Waterthrush. But we also saw some of the species that do not occur regularly around home: Golden-winged Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Nashville Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Cape May Warbler, Blackburnian Warbler, Bay-breasted Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler, Northern Waterthrush, Kentucky Warbler.

Last year, at Magee Marsh, we saw Mourning Warbler and Cerulean Warbler. We were sorry to miss those this year. They are very scarce in areas close to home. Perhaps they turned up at Magee after we’d left.

Of all the amazing things that birds do, to me, their annual migration stands out as the most remarkable. Each bird species has its own timetable and “map”, and knows what to do: where and when to go north, and when to return “home” to its wintering grounds.

Why is it in a bird’s interest to migrate? A bird has four basic needs: food, finding a mate, nesting and raising young. If a warbler were to remain on its wintering grounds throughout the year, it would have to compete with other species for food and nest sites. Over millennia, many bird species have evolved to best cope with these basic needs.

According to the Peterson Field Guide, Warblers, by Jon Dunn and Kimball Garrett, “the most highly migratory wood-warbler, the Blackpoll, breeds across the boreal forests as far north as northwest Alaska and winters mainly east of the Andes in northern south America. In spring its migration is mainly north through peninsular Florida or across the Gulf of Mexico, but the fall migration is quite easterly, with many birds apparently flying well out over the Atlantic from the northeastern states and provinces.”

Magee Marsh is a user-friendly place. Although it gets crowded with birders and photographers during the height of migration, everyone is generally very accommodating and it is always possible to maneuver so as to get a good look at the birds. More experienced birders are always ready to help “rookies” find and identify the birds.

Spring isn’t over yet. There’s still hope. I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll be able to catch a few other warbler species that I’ve missed so far this year: Blue-winged Warbler, Cerulean Warbler, Canada Warbler.

And then there’s always next year.