“Anthony Kaduck, you stand accused of twitching in the first degree, in that on the 28th of April in this year of our Lord 2019, you did willfully and with prior intent travel to Oshawa for the sole purpose of viewing a bird, to wit a Hermit Warbler. How do you plead?”
“Guilty, m’Lud.”
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(Nice Hermit Warbler image by Patko erika courtesy of Wikipedia)
Well, so much for dialing back my birding travels after last year’s efforts…
I completely missed the first clue. While scrolling through the hourly rare bird update for Ontario I glanced at a posting about a Hermit something in Thickson’s Woods. I deleted the post, wondering to myself why a Hermit Thrush would trigger a rare bird alert.
Later on that evening I received a message from Paul Mackenzie, asking if I wanted to chase the Hermit WARBLER at Thickson’s Woods. A quick check of Sibley’s revealed that there was indeed such a bird, and it was way out of its normal range. Despite the late hour, and having different plans for Sunday, and having consumed a large meal and several beverages, I agreed. (On second thought, the beverages may have played a role). And so the game was afoot.
And what is a Hermit Warbler…
…you ask? A very shy and retiring wood warbler that normally breeds on the West coast of the US, winters in Mexico, and occasionally wanders as far afield as Colorado. So this particular beastie evidently took a seriously wrong turn at Albuquerque. Worth chasing in the first instance, and the fact that it was a very fresh-looking adult male – and thus a stunning bird – added further impetus.
As I sped West after a delayed start I went through the usual nameless dread that accompanies twitchers – that I would arrive to the soul-destroying phrase “you should have been here ten minutes ago”, followed by several dreary and ultimately futile hours searching for a bird that has well and truly departed never to be seen again.
I arrived to at the crowded parking area and the first two birders I met were packing up to go, having been treated to a fine exhibition by the bird in question. One fellow mentioned how unusual it was for a rare bird to be so confiding, and that I was sure to get some great close-up photos. Foolishly letting down my guard, I wandered over to the last known location to find that the bird had vanished some minutes before. The Cassandras in the group opined that it had fed well all morning and was likely gone for good, headed North.
The Agony and the Ecstasy
The assembled multitudes milled around aimlessly for a while, but gradually the crowd started to thin out until only three or four of us were left at the scene of the crime. Had the warbler waited another ten minutes he might have been able to frolic unobserved, but as it was he poked his bright yellow head out of the foliage right in my line of sight. A quick look confirmed that this was a Hermit Warbler, and I announced it just as he disappeared again.
No one else saw it, and after another ten warbler-free minutes
I detected a certain veiled skepticism among the cognoscenti. But with nothing
else in sight a number of birders drifted back, so when the beast reappeared he
was spotted. In typical warbler fashion he was flitting constantly in and out
of the foliage so a photograph was not possible, but the Hermit is a very distinctive
warbler and he was well seen by all.[1]
So there is no particular moral to this story but at least it had a happy ending for me, with life bird #1680 in the bag. Sadly, my travelling companion and instigator of the twitch had to leave for home and missed the bird by ten minutes.
BTW, Luc Fazio managed to get some good video footage of the warbler when it was showing off – viewable at this link.
[1] Less, of course, those misguided souls who think that a camera is a good alternative to binoculars – they were mostly unable to find the bird.
