Today promised to be a perfect day for birding: the sun was shining, the temperature was headed from the low 50s into the 70s, and birdcast.info estimated that 3.4 million birds had flown over Mercer County overnight. The best factor of all: I would join the Princeton Birding Society on a warbler walk at the Charles Rogers Preserve and the Institute Woods in Princeton.
The birding society is the student birding group at Princeton University. I’d met up with them two years ago during Spring migration. The group is a mix of advanced birders (Princeton won the World Series of Birding in 2022) and newcomers to the hobby/obsession.
We spent two and a half hours wandering the trails in the woods, and the student logging the sightings for the group came up with 36 species. I listed 29 for myself and was plenty satisfied.
The best warbler activity we observed was at the end of the visit, when we wandered past the preserve parking lot to a crossroads where a couple of trails intersect.
We saw a dizzying display of warblers in the trees: yellow-rumped, blackpoll and Cape May, an unexpected pleasure after spotting pine and palm warblers earlier in the walk.
While today was a good one for sightings, my photos didn’t quite measure up. The best I could do was this shot of the myrtle version of a yellow-rumped warbler.
With 12 of us walking through the woods, we surely saw more birds than any one of us would have walking solo. I admire the students who organize the club for sharing their enthusiasm and knowledge of birds freely with others — college students and the occasional university staffer who joins them on their outings. 🦅
The Jersey Birder 