Birding the Forests of Baldpate Mountain

On Wednesday, May 20th, 2020, I headed to Baldpate Mountain near Lambertville, NJ early in the morning to see what forest species I could track down. I arrived at 6:50 am and was immediately amazed by the orchestra of warblers that I arrived to. It was a cool, overcast morning with temperatures around 45 degrees. I continued to walk around the preserve until 12:05 pm. Baldpate Mountain is my favorite local spot to go to during migration and it definitely didn't disappoint today! I had one of my best mornings for warblers ever, managing to track down 18 species. I got out of my car at the bottom of the road up the mountain near a small water source surrounded with deciduous forest and a few open areas where trees had fallen down. One of the first birds I saw was a beautiful male Canada Warbler singing away. I was also very excited to hear the songs of Tennessee Warblers all around me. I rarely ever get to see Tennessee Warblers but I managed to get great views of multiple individuals this morning. Soon after came the star of the morning, a beautiful Kentucky Warbler that gave me extended views as he sat on an open branch in the middle of a small clearing in the forest with very dense understory growth. Originally, I discounted this birds song as a somewhat odd Carolina Wren because they are so difficult to find in this area. So when he hopped up onto that branch I was thrilled and it was a good lesson to always investigate if something doesn't sound quite right and to not discount the rare species. After finding a few of the harder warblers to find in this area, I was determined to turn this into a "big warbler day" and try to find as many warblers as possible. I decided to walk the rest of the road up to the top of the mountain and found a handful of other warbler species before I made it to the meadow at the top of the mountain. Here I added a few more species like Blue-winged Warbler and Yellow Warbler. Then I headed back into the forest to wrap up my morning. Since I knew of a very close spot that reliably has Prairie Warblers I drove slowly past it on the way home and managed to hear one sing. It was a great way to end such a productive morning!

Posted on May 20, 2020 09:41 PM by phil_stoll