Migration can be a pain in the neck – Skywatch Friday

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My first blackpoll warbler of the season.

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Cape May warblers were everywhere.

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Red-eyed vireo.

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A first-summer male orchard oriole with mulberry stains on his chest.

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I think this is a female orchard oriole.

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I think this is a first year female Baltimore oriole.

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Another red-eyed vireo.

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I saw one northern Parula that morning.

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Baltimore oriole.

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My first black throated green warbler.

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A male orchard oriole taking a berry break.

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Prairie warbler doing some weird acrobats.

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Bye,bye, orchard oriole.

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 A female rose breasted grosbeak.

It was a busy day in mid-April. A big fall out day. Spring migration was in full swing and I knew I’d come home with a neck ache from staring up in the trees all morning. I was right. Birds were everywhere but they did not sit still very long. There were almost as many people at Fort Desoto that morning. Everyone was yelling out bird names: “there goes a female blah blah”, ” I just saw an immature male blah blah”, ” has anyone seen the yellow blah blah?” All of the little birds were starting to looking alike, especially the yellow and brown ones. Let me know if I got any of the above wrong. People had driven from all over the state to check birds off their list. I met a ton of new people and ran into people I hadn’t seen since the last migration. It was catch up day. The next couple of weekends still had a few birds but not like this big weekend. I also saw a lot of little red birds and blue birds. More on those later.

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