A Birder's Life for Me

I'm headed for Potter County, PA tomorrow to attend the Northern Potter High School commencement ceremonies with my brother where our late mother will be inducted into the NoPo High School Teachers Hall of Fame.  Mom taught business classes there for 35 years.

Of course, I will use the trip as an opportunity to seek out a couple of north woods birds that are still missing from the 2025 list.  Frankly, I'm just hoping it doesn't snow.

The Michigan/Ohio swing ended with 24 new species for the year and 4 new life birds.  The numbers weren't big like our swings through Arizona and Texas but, we weren't going to see most of those 24 species anywhere else this year.  For the trip, we saw about 110 total species.

Here are a few final looks including this happy-to-pose-all-day-for-photos Bay-breasted Warbler.

A Baltimore Oriole eyes the next orange it is about to devour.

  This Blackburnian Warbler offered better looks than what we saw the previous day...

And, we encountered what seems to be a hybrid between a Golden-winged Warbler and a Blue-winged Warbler.  Merlin insisted it was a Golden-winged Warbler based on its call. However, it clearly looks like a Blue-winged Warbler.  So, after 4 years of seeing people identify hybrid birds, I think we finally found one.  This is a big bummer because a true Golden-winged Warbler would have been a life bird.

We also got okay looks at the endangered Kirtland's Warbler.  Getting good looks at this bird in its very limited breeding grounds in Michigan and Wisconsin is not easy but, seeing this species anywhere else in the US is 'iffy' at best; perhaps South Florida during spring migration.

The other option is to see it during the winter months in the Bahamas.  Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea.

This Nashville Warbler was belting out its tune as if it thought it was Louis Armstrong.

The YTD 2025 count is now 460, just 40 away from the goal of 500.  After the quick trip to Pennsyltucky this week, we head for the "land of fruits and nuts."  Yes, I'm talking about California.  I can't wait for the $4-5 per gallon gas.