For the last couple of weeks in April, 2023, I had been worrying that there hadn’t been the number of warblers coming to the yard that I expected. For the last week or so in late April I had been monitoring the yard fairly closely, especially in the afternoons.  I spent some of my time developing a form I could use to document daily migrant arrivals during the month of May, our heaviest time for migrant influx. 

To recap, I observed my first seasonal arrival (s) on April 16 and 17, 2023.  Both observations were of a single Orange-crowned warbler, and of course I have no way of determining whether or not it was the same bird. On April 24 things took a dramatic turn when a Townsend’s warbler showed up, explored the yard and took a bath. I was able to obtain over 70 photos of the bird!  I was encouraged that this was the exciting beginning of our migration arrivals. But I had yet longer to wait. 

On April 25 I discovered a dead Orange-crowned warbler, apparently the result of a window kill… but still no large influx. 

Following two warm, sunny days with no sign of migrants, April 30 dawned much cooler with cloud cover and some early very minor precipitation.  My unfounded optimism at this point was that the birds had had two wonderful days for migration and that they might now be ready for rest, food… and a bath!  

I began my yard monitoring on April 30 at 1:20pm. At 1:30pm I had my first migratory visitor of the day… an Orange-crowned warbler (OCWA). These are actually year-round residents, but our number of sightings rise significantly in the spring and summer. 

I’ve set out my observations for the afternoon below. My documentation is based on VISITS since in most cases I have no way of distinguishing one bird from another… even using photographs. This is especially true with OCWAs. I did manage to determine from photos that the Audubon’s warblers (AUWAs) were different birds. 

To speed my documentation I’ve been trying to learn and use established abbreviations for species. Here are the abbreviations for the species listed below: OCWA – Orange-crowned warbler;  WIWA – Wilson’s warbler; AUWA – Audubon”s warbler.

1:30 – OCWA 

1:40pm – OCWA 

1:55pm – OCWA (2) 

2:05pm: AUWA (m), OCWA (2) 

2:20pm – WIWA (m) 

2:40pm – OCWA 

2:50pm- OCWA 

3:00pm – AUWA (m) 

3:10pm – OCWA, WIWA (m) 

3:15pm – OCWA, WIWA (m) 

3:25pm – OCWA 

I left the yard at 4:20pm, after three hours of observation. But wait… there’s more!  (Where have we heard that before?). My new office remodel gives me a good view of a couple of our water features, including our watercourse. While processing the afternoons photos in my office I had the following observations: 

4:55pm – OCWA 

5:50pm – OCWA 

6:05pm – OCWA 

Tallying the day’s observations, I had two male AUWA visits, three male WIWA visits, and at least 12 OCWA visits. I didn’t keep tabs on how many photographs I took, but I obtained good photos of all three species of warblers that visited. Some of those photos appear below…