[CT Birds] Sunrise Bird Walk - Poverty Hollow and thoughts on migration

[streatham2003 at aol.com]

Hi All,

It seems like my post from Saturday evening didn't make it through, so I thought I'd mention the walk on Saturday morning. We took a walk through the recently opened and what seems to be the very promising?Centennial Watershed State Forest in Redding/Easton (last year Charlie Barnard and I were pleased to find White-eyed Vireo breeding in there amongst other things). The site adds to the wealth of fantastic birding to be had in that part of Fairfield County (Trout Brook Valley etc). The walk itself was a little slow though with highlights being Purple Finch and Winter Wren and just for sheer great looks a Louisiana Waterthrush that posed for us for amazing scope views for a few minutes on a streamside twig (a couple of the group had a Common Raven pre-walk) and then a smattering of the expected woodland migrant species and only 5 species of warbler. 

Saturday I wondered whether we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time but looking at reports from East Rock and Greenwich Point (two state hotspots) it seems like warblers were somewhat few and far between across state. On the two walks I lead this weekend people were asking if migrants were late this year. 'Late migration' always seems to get banded about by birders to explain why the going is poor but I wonder whether that is really the case - I noted just to our north and west a spot that I like for migrants in NY state had 15-20 species of warbler on Saturday so they can't be 'late' everywhere. It makes me think that when the weather isn't conducive for birds in one area they just slip around it. 

Luke Tiller, Wilton
www.sunrisebirding.com