Birding Corvo 2009: American Yellow Warbler

Today everyone started in Ribeira do Poso de Agua and looked for the Chestnut-sided Warbler. Exactly zero of us saw or heard it! On our way there a few saw the Indigo Bunting in da Ponte from the car. I missed it of course :( After a few hours I left Poso de Agua to try the Indigo Bunting instead. When I had walked about 50 m people Simon called me back since they had seen an Indigo Bunting in Poso de Agua! I missed it and the bird was not seen again. Spent a few more hours in the valley but didn't see anything interesting. Got a few shots of a Woodcock on the ground.

Woodcock

In the afternoon I left to try the Indigo Bunting in da Ponte again. Not much happened. In fact it was really boring until Vincent arrived and I had someone to talk to. After a while Manuel came with some newly arrive birders. We thought just a few would arrive but they turned out to be nine! Vincent took them down inte da Ponte to look for some of the megas that are present in there. I stayed up by the road and continued to watch the boring non-Indigo tree. After two hours I was pretty cold and went for a short walk. Bumped into Pierre and had a little chat with him before our walkie-talkies went crazy. René had found a Warbler with all yellow underparts, a possible American Yellow Warbler. Pierre had already seen it in the WP so he went to radio the others while I ran down to where the bird was. Didn't take long before I saw it and soon everyone had seen it pretty good - an American Yellow Warbler! Really strange that it turned up in da Ponte since it is by far the most watched site the last week. Why do so many Yanks end up there? Apart from the Yellow Warbler the Black-and-white and two(!) American Redstarts were present in the same valley! Went back to the non-Indigo tree and spent another 1½ hours or so there getting aquainted with some of the new birders.

Back in the village we bumped into Simon who had just relocated the Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Got some good but brief views of the bird before it drapped down on the ground. Later had a look at the Great Egret that Pete had found in the fields behind "The Bandit's". Got great views of it as it was walking around along the stonewalls, waving its neck and catching insects. The Caldeira bird that is out sightseeing or a new bird in? Maybe we'll find out after tomorrow when some birders have been in the Caldeira.

Great Egret

As I was watching the Egret Pierre announced on the radio that a Cormorant was flying along the island towards the harbour. Picked up the bird pretty quick but it was to distant to see any details. Took my camera and got some crap shots of the bird but you can't see shit on the pictures either. Apart from these birds Fred also saw a Corn Crake and a Red-eyed Vireo around Pico. Probably the same crake as I saw four weeks ago.