Menu

eBird Québec Checklist S139153079

Sharing links

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Copy link

Main Details

Location Dunes de Tadoussac
View with Google Maps

Additional Details

People

Owner Ian Davies

Effort

Protocol:  Traveling
  • Observers:  12
  • Distance:  0.2 mi

Checklist Comments

There are some days that feel too good to be true, waking dreams filled with birds. Today was one of those days.

A river of a quarter-million warblers. 12 hours. A dozen or so of us were able to witness this incredible spectacle today in Tadoussac, Quebec, a spectacle that has only happened at this magnitude once before—at the exact same place on 28 May 2018 (https://ebird.org/checklist/S46116491).

Today started with cautiously high hopes, as the Tadoussac regulars had been eyeing this day since the weekend: southwest winds overnight (tailwinds good for migration), combined with a big cold front arriving right around dawn, bringing rain, strong northwest winds, and colder temperatures—the same setup that has resulted in flights of tens or hundreds of thousands of birds in past Mays. Despite the hope, you never know what will happen until you’re out there.

The first couple hours of daylight featured drizzle and strong winds, and not many birds until about 6:45, when the rain became more light and intermittent. The trickle of warblers began to expand across the sky, increasing to 100 birds per minute, then 500 birds/minute by 7:30. The Tadoussac river of warblers had begun.

This flight continued at 300-500 birds/minute until about 9:20, at which point the rain dropped significantly, and the flood gates opened, as many as 1345 warblers/minute raging past in a torrent of flight calls and glowing songbirds. Birds were everywhere, below eye level, flying between people, pouring through the bushes, landing on the sand, and one Cape May Warbler even tried to land on my arm. A Red-eyed Vireo flew into someone. It was madness.

For the next four hours, tens of thousands of warblers raced past, sometimes inches off of the sand. For one period of time, the rate of warblers was 80,000/hour—similar to many points of the record day in 2018.

The most common species of warbler was Bay-breasted, with an estimated 1 in 3 birds being of this species, followed by significant numbers of Cape May, Yellow-rumped, and Tennessee—all around 1 in 5. At one point, one branch in an isolated tree had 9 Cape May and 6 Bay-breasted Warblers on it. This was not unusual today.

With so many individual birds, there are also always some oddities—most notably a Summer Tanager and a Red-shouldered Hawk, the tanager a first for the location and apparent 2nd for the county, and the Red-shouldered the first for the location since 1992 (second ever), and apparent 7th for the county. There were also significant numbers of Evening Grosbeaks, American Pipits, Horned Larks, and Cedar Waxwings—large flocks that would cut through the river of warblers—including the all-time high count for the location of Evening Grosbeak.

As always, these massive events require balancing the need to document what is happening with the desire to just bask in the greatest avian spectacle I’m aware of. We tried our best, knowing that any method is imperfect, and all we can do is try.

We arrived at total numbers of birds by estimating the rate of movement, since there is a constant ‘flow’ of birds moving to the southwest. Rate estimates were made by counting the number of individuals passing the count location in a one-minute period. Multiple observers would work to count the full sky (e.g., one person count towards the river, one inland, done in this list by Jessé and Ian), and those counts would be combined for a one-minute rate estimate. These counts were repeated every 10-20 minutes throughout the day. The counts are then used to interpolate counts between the timed counts (e.g., a count at 9:30 would be used to estimate numbers of birds moving between 9:25 and 9:35, where your next count at 9:40 would be used to count between 9:35-9:45).

Rate counts were combined with our best estimates of warbler species composition from the field experience throughout the day.

The below numbers are the rate counts throughout the day. Species-specific numbers and comments are in the checklist. The estimated total number of warblers (rounded to nearest 500) is 258,500. This appears to be the second-highest total number of warblers recorded anywhere in a single day.

5:30–30/min
5:40–25
5:50–62
6:00–37
6:10–51
6:20–30
6:30–29
6:40–67 (rain more intermittent)
6:50–122
7:00–133
7:10–228
7:20–441
7:30–520
7:40–520
7:50–366
8:00–329
8:10–358
8:20–320
8:30–289
8:40–342
8:50–708 (flight line broadened from just river to inland)
9:05–831
9:20–1345 (rain slackened off)
9:30–1185
9:40–1025
9:50–1100
10:00–563 (heavier drizzle)
10:10–615
10:20–587
10:35–571
10:50–983 (rain almost stopped)
11:10–830
11:30–792
11:50–655 (wind dropped a lot, birds much higher)
12:10–511
12:30–495
12:50–470
1:10–349
1:30–277
1:45–330
2:00–151
2:20–178
2:40–136
3:00–39
3:20–29
3:40–19

Massive thanks to the Observatoire d’Oiseaux de Tadoussac (http://www.explosnature.ca/oot/) for monitoring the birds of this region for decades, and sharing the wonder of this place with the global birding community.

Submitted from eBird for iOS, version 2.18.6

Totals

96
Species Observed
+3 other taxa, 263,771 individuals
27
Species with Photos
2
Species with Video
+1 other taxa

Observations

  1. Mallard

    Number observed:  2

  2. American Black Duck

    Number observed:  4

  3. Common Eider

    Number observed:  80

  4. Surf Scoter

    Number observed:  30

  5. White-winged Scoter

    Number observed:  10

  6. Black Scoter

    Number observed:  500

  7. scoter sp.

    Number observed:  200

  8. Long-tailed Duck

    Number observed:  300

  9. Red-breasted Merganser

    Number observed:  15

  10. Ruby-throated Hummingbird

    Number observed:  3

    Details

    including one male that was displaying to many migrating warblers: we watched it display to at least 5 species

    Media

  11. Solitary Sandpiper (solitaria)

    Number observed:  4

  12. Black Guillemot

    Number observed:  25

  13. Razorbill

    Number observed:  12

  14. Ring-billed Gull

    Number observed:  20

  15. American Herring Gull

    Number observed:  150

  16. Great Black-backed Gull

    Number observed:  15

  17. Glaucous Gull

    Number observed:  1

  18. Iceland Gull

    Number observed:  2

  19. Red-throated Loon

    Number observed:  20

  20. Common Loon

    Number observed:  4

  21. Double-crested Cormorant

    Number observed:  15

  22. Great Blue Heron (Great Blue)

    Number observed:  3

  23. Turkey Vulture

    Number observed:  4

  24. Osprey (American)

    Number observed:  1

  25. Sharp-shinned Hawk (Northern)

    Number observed:  8

    Details

    Exact count of birds moving SW

  26. Northern Harrier

    Number observed:  1

  27. Bald Eagle

    Number observed:  9

    Details

    Exact count

  28. Broad-winged Hawk

    Number observed:  4

  29. Red-shouldered Hawk

    Number observed:  1

    Details

    **rare; adult spotted by Jessé right overhead at 3:45, first record at the dunes since 1992 (second ever), and 7th for the county in eBird. Photographed, midsize raptor with rufous barring below, black and white barred wings and tail.

    Media

  30. Red-tailed Hawk

    Number observed:  4

  31. Belted Kingfisher

    Number observed:  1

  32. Downy Woodpecker (Eastern)

    Number observed:  1

  33. Pileated Woodpecker

    Number observed:  1

  34. Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted)

    Number observed:  2

  35. American Kestrel

    Number observed:  1

  36. Merlin (Taiga)

    Number observed:  2

  37. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher

    Number observed:  1

    Media

  38. Least Flycatcher

    Number observed:  3

    Media

  39. Empidonax sp.

    Number observed:  2

  40. Eastern Kingbird

    Number observed:  5

  41. Blue-headed Vireo

    Number observed:  3

  42. Philadelphia Vireo

    Number observed:  400

    Details

    **high; estimate of birds moving to SW in massive movement today (slightly less common than Blackpoll Warbler)

    Media

  43. Red-eyed Vireo

    Number observed:  60

    Details

    *high; estimate of birds moving to SW in massive movement today

    Media

  44. Blue Jay

    Number observed:  54

  45. American Crow

    Number observed:  16

  46. Common Raven

    Number observed:  3

  47. Black-capped Chickadee

    Number observed:  1

  48. Horned Lark

    Number observed:  179

    Details

    Large flocks moving with warblers, incredible to see together!

    Media

  49. Bank Swallow

    Number observed:  5

  50. Tree Swallow

    Number observed:  250

  51. Barn Swallow (American)

    Number observed:  3

  52. Cliff Swallow (pyrrhonota Group)

    Number observed:  3

  53. Ruby-crowned Kinglet

    Number observed:  8

  54. Red-breasted Nuthatch

    Number observed:  10

  55. Veery

    Number observed:  2

  56. Swainson's Thrush (Olive-backed)

    Number observed:  2

  57. Hermit Thrush (faxoni/crymophilus)

    Number observed:  1

  58. American Robin

    Number observed:  1

  59. Cedar Waxwing

    Number observed:  1079

    Details

    number from official OOT count

    Media

  60. American Pipit

    Number observed:  93

    Details

    number from official OOT count

  61. Evening Grosbeak

    Number observed:  1427

    Details

    **record high; number from official OOT count

    Media

  62. Purple Finch (Eastern)

    Number observed:  90

  63. Pine Siskin

    Number observed:  341

    Details

    number from official OOT count

    Media

  64. American Goldfinch

    Number observed:  35

  65. Chipping Sparrow

    Number observed:  70

  66. Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored)

    Number observed:  15

  67. White-crowned Sparrow (Dark-lored)

    Number observed:  10

    Media

  68. White-throated Sparrow

    Number observed:  15

  69. Vesper Sparrow

    Number observed:  1

    Details

    unusual here; spotted by Jessé feeding on ground on inland side of road

  70. Savannah Sparrow (Savannah)

    Number observed:  25

    Details

    moving overhead

    Media

  71. Bobolink

    Number observed:  1

  72. Red-winged Blackbird (Red-winged)

    Number observed:  15

  73. Common Grackle (Bronzed)

    Number observed:  25

  74. Ovenbird

    Number observed:  3

  75. Northern Waterthrush

    Number observed:  12

  76. Black-and-white Warbler

    Number observed:  30

  77. Tennessee Warbler

    Number observed:  46500

    Details

    ***HIGH; estimated slightly fewer than 1 in 5 warblers moving through (18% of all warblers today). This final count was obtained by taking 18% of the total warbler count and rounding to the nearest 100.

    Media

  78. Nashville Warbler

    Number observed:  100

  79. Mourning Warbler

    Number observed:  1

  80. Common Yellowthroat

    Number observed:  4

    Media

  81. American Redstart

    Number observed:  600

    Details

    ***HIGH; estimated 1 in 400 warblers moving through (0.25% of all warblers today). This final count was obtained by taking 0.25% of the total warbler count and rounding to the nearest 100. Many more lower down; less represented in higher birds.

    Media

  82. Cape May Warbler

    Number observed:  56900

    Details

    ***HIGH; estimated slightly more than 1 in 5 warblers moving through (22% of all warblers today). This final count was obtained by taking 22% of the total warbler count and rounding to the nearest 100.

    Media

  83. Northern Parula

    Number observed:  120

  84. Magnolia Warbler

    Number observed:  5200

    Details

    ***HIGH; estimated 1 in 50 warblers moving through (2% of all warblers today). This final count was obtained by taking 2% of the total warbler count and rounding to the nearest 100. Higher numbers later in the day, primarily low, but also some high.

    Media

  85. Bay-breasted Warbler

    Number observed:  85300

    Details

    ***HIGH; estimated 1 in 3 warblers moving through (33% of all warblers today). This final count was obtained by taking 33% of the total warbler count and rounding to the nearest 100.

    Media

  86. Blackburnian Warbler

    Number observed:  1300

    Details

    ***HIGH; estimated 1 in 200 warblers moving through (0.5% of all warblers today). This final count was obtained by taking 0.5% of the total warbler count and rounding to the nearest 100.

    Media

  87. Yellow Warbler (Northern)

    Number observed:  3

  88. Chestnut-sided Warbler

    Number observed:  40

    Media

  89. Blackpoll Warbler

    Number observed:  500

    Details

    **HIGH; estimated 1 in 500 warblers moving through (0.2% of all warblers today). This final count was obtained by taking 0.2% of the total warbler count and rounding to the nearest 100.

    Media

  90. Black-throated Blue Warbler

    Number observed:  25

  91. Palm Warbler

    Number observed:  3

  92. Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)

    Number observed:  51700

    Details

    ***HIGH; estimated 1 in 5 warblers moving through (20% of all warblers today). This final count was obtained by taking 20% of the total warbler count and rounding to the nearest 100. Fewer lower down, more higher, and often in larger groups amid the warbler river.

    Media

  93. Black-throated Green Warbler

    Number observed:  2600

    Details

    ***HIGH; estimated 1 in 100 warblers moving through (1% of all warblers today). This final count was obtained by taking 1% of the total warbler count and rounding to the nearest 100. Higher numbers later in the day.

    Media

  94. Canada Warbler

    Number observed:  6

    Media

  95. Wilson's Warbler

    Number observed:  15

    Media

  96. new world warbler sp.

    Number observed:  7093

    Details

    Remainder of estimated warbler total (a little over 3%)

    Media

  97. Summer Tanager

    Number observed:  1

    Details

    ***rare; first for the dunes and second for the county. Female-type initially seen perched next to Christmas tree at top of dunes, photographed. Ochre-colored tanager with large pale bill, no wing contrast with body.

    Media

  98. Scarlet Tanager

    Number observed:  2

    Details

    Female and male moving to southwest

  99. Rose-breasted Grosbeak

    Number observed:  4

    Media

Media Powered by Macaulay Library