At 07:19 PM 8/8/2006, you wrote:
>Janet,
>    Unless you have had Black-&-white Warblers in your yard all 
> summer this bird is probably a migrant. Notice the Yellow Book 
> graph shows July 24 as the earliest arrival.

On July 28th, I saw a small bird walking upside down on my sunflower 
feeder.  It took a moment to realize that it wasn't a nuthatch, it 
was an adult female black & white warbler.  It poked around the 
feeder, then flew down to the railing, then into the woods.  I saw it 
on the railing the next day as well.  Since they don't breed nearby, 
it may have been a migrant, or perhaps a very far afield 
vagrant.  How many miles does it take for vagrancy to become 
migration?  A little later, there was another warbler on another 
feeder that had me stumped.  Perhaps a very immature pine warbler.

There was a thread about odd birds at feeders, to which I can add 
that sometimes various oddball things follow chickadees to the 
feeder.  They don't eat anything - they just seem to come in to see 
what the chickadees are so interested in.  I have seen an adult male 
black-throated blue warbler, a redstart and a worm-eating warbler do 
this.  The redstart actually defended a feeder for a while and was 
there more than once.  Yesterday, there was a blue-gray gnatcatcher 
on the sunflower feeder.  I assume that it was a coincidence, but I 
had just filled the feeder with some meal moth infested seeds, and it 
may have been eating the moths.  Gnatcatchers do nest in my yard, so 
this was most likely the local resident.  The summer tanagers are 
still coming to the feeder, but they are more interested in the bird 
bath.  I don't know why they are called 'summer' tanagers, but they 
are still singing, while the scarlet tanager was last heard on July 14th.

On July 5th, there was a bird ticking loudly in the bushes in my 
yard.  A month later, and I would have been certain it was a northern 
waterthrush, but July is early enough to make me doubt the ID.  I 
couldn't get it to come into view.  It reminded me of the time I was 
in Trinidad and I heard the same sound coming from some bushes.  I 
commented to our guide that if I were back in the states, I would 
call that a northern waterthrush.  He responded "That is what we call 
it here, too!"

Good birding,
Paul


3709 Devonshire Drive
Salisbury, MD 21804
410-572-9950
443-783-1268 (cell)