Above is the only picture I got of the yellow breasted chat. I had heard there was one here at Fred Howard Park in Tarpon Springs last spring but I never made it up here to look for it. This year I had to go since I had never seen one before. It had been reported for 3 days before I got there.  Early the first morning I looked for 2 hours with 2 other people and had to leave for a dentist appointment with no sighting. People reported it later in the morning so the next morning I went up a little later (around 8:30am). There were at least 20 other people looking in the area it had been seen the day before. After over an hour it made a brief (above) appearance. After waiting another hour I gave up and went for a walk around the rest of the park. It looks a little like the yellow throated warbler but without the black stripes.

There was a Cape May warbler bouncing around in the area where the chat was. This was a banner spring for Cape Mays. They were everywhere.

I found other usual spring migration birds around the park including a prairie warbler, a hooded warbler, a white eyed vireo and a northern parula.

My 2nd lifer of the morning was a Lincoln’s sparrow. He was on the other side of the park from the chat and was scratching around in the dirt along the mangroves near the water.

Above the Lincoln sparrow was a prairie warbler posing nicely in the bushes.

I saw the painted lady butterfly while we were waiting for the chat to show up.